


elixir

by babygrxxt



Category: Larry Stylinson - Fandom, One Direction
Genre: 45000 words, Amnesia, Angst, Fluff, M/M, Memories, Oneshot, TAGS ARE SPOILERS, louis is a bit of an asshole sometimes, x factor - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-09
Updated: 2014-08-09
Packaged: 2018-02-12 08:51:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 45,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2103153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babygrxxt/pseuds/babygrxxt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s been almost five years that they’ve been together when everything falls apart. A motor crash leads to Harry losing his memory of everything leading up to their fourth tour, including Louis’ existence. They’ve been through so much together. Surely this is just another bump in the road, right?<br/>Wrong.<br/>This isn’t a story of two boys who fell in love once and that was enough. This isn’t a story of smooth sailing, or heated arguments that end in kissing and falling into each other’s arms all over again. No, this is a story of tears, of reminicising, of a broken boy desperately trying to remember his own brokenness.<br/>This is a story of two boys, Harry and Lou.</p>
            </blockquote>





	elixir

**_Thirty minutes before._ **

It was a warmer day than the rest of that month had been. The Australian air was heavy and stifling, and Louis’ movements were weighed down with both the exhaustion that being on tour brought as well as the palpable tension in the air. There had been yet another argument between Liam and Harry, which seemed to be increasing in frequency with each passing day. It wasn’t even over anything in particular though, and that’s what Louis couldn’t seem to understand. In the early days of the band, it had been Liam and Louis who had been at each others’ throats due to their varying degrees of seriousness, and then it progressed to Niall and Louis for some reason (perhaps the fact that Niall kept putting his paws all over Louis’ boyfriend, but that was besides the point), and now it was the two boys/men who were famed for being the sensible ones, the calm ones, the ones that never rose their voices.

What bullshit. Louis knew better than anybody that Harry could be a snippy little shit when he wanted to be, and Liam wasn’t as innocent as the persona he gave out. A couple of wild nights out with him and Louis had discovered that even he couldn’t keep up with drunken Liam, and that was saying something considering for the vast majority of his teenage years Louis’ only stable employment seemed to be ‘bordering alcoholic’.

Harry and Liam’s main problem was that neither of them was willing to back down, and even though today’s dispute had been over Liam using Harry’s toothbrush without asking (“How am I supposed to know where that mouth has been Liam?”) they were treating it as if Liam had slept with Harry’s mother. Of course, Liam had confided in Louis after a couple too many shots that he did, in fact, think Harry’s mum was, as he so tastefully put it, “older sex on legs”, which Louis responded to by respectfully calling him a fucking prick and then following it up with, “That’s my boyfriend’s mother you’re talking about!” Liam had just giggled though, and the next morning he didn’t respond to Louis’ poignant glances over the breakfast table as Harry talked about the conversation he had had with his mother before he went to sleep last night, which at least managed to convince Louis that he either didn’t remember what the hell had happened the previous night and allowed him to basically erase it from his mind for as long a time period as he could manage.

“Will you two give it a rest?” Zayn groaned as Harry and Liam sat purposefully on opposite ends of the sofa, grabbing Xbox controllers. “You’re giving me a headache.” Louis went with Niall to the kitchen (it had progressed significantly since the first tour where it was a fridge and a kettle. Now, it was a fridge, kettle and cooker) and grabbed some popcorn before joining them. Niall plopped himself down in between Zayn and Liam, and then seemed to decide better of it. He waited until Louis had gone to his usual spot of rightbeside Harry and then wedged himself in between the pairs, his face slightly pink.

Louis draped his legs over Harry’s and took the controller from him, knowing that he had no desire to play anyways and this was a four player game. “Yeah babe,” he said, poking Harry in the non-existent dimple, hoping it would erase some of the grumpiness that had settled on his features. He somewhat succeeded, and the corner of Harry’s mouth twitched upwards. “You know how Zayn hates conflict.”

Zayn smirked over at Louis who reciprocated the action. “Just kiss him,” Niall laughed as Liam watched the loading screen with a determined annoyance. “You know you want to.”

“I always want to,” Louis responded, and that was all it took for Harry to move, leaning in and capturing his lips. Every kiss felt like the first had when Harry was slightly squishy and nowhere near as toned as he was now; when Louis had Justin Bieber hair and they both had no idea where they were going or what they were to do when they got there. Harry tasted slightly like strawberry, and Louis felt a flutter in his chest as the other boy’s hand moved to his lower back, strong and certain, unwavering in its affection.

“Iloveyou,” Harry muttered against Louis’ hair as Louis returned his focus to the video game.

“I love you more,” Louis replied, and Niall made a barfing sound in the background but Louis didn’t care, he didn’t care.

“I swear mate,” the Irish boy drawled, picking out his player from the Fifa menu that had just loaded up. “I never hear you as soft as when you are with Harry. You’re a right pain in the ass the rest of the time.”

Niall received a dig in the arm from both Zayn and Louis at that, whereas Harry just laughed. “At least I have a cheerleader,” Louis teased, sticking his tongue out. Niall made an offended noise. “Single is better. Freedom and all that, yeah?” Before the X Factor, Louis would’ve tended to agree. But now, he just squeezed Harry’s thigh as he spoke and said,  
“But when your boyfriend looks so amazing in skinny jeans who would mind prison?” Niall laughed at that. “You make a good point.”

The group settled into silence after that, a little crease in each of their foreheads as they focused on the game. Liam still hadn’t said a word, and he was slamming the keys very hard, but he had turned the brunt of his anger towards the game. Harry watched the screen for a few minutes before letting out a sigh. “Louis,” He whispered, drawing out every syllable. “Not now love,” Louis responded, tackling Liam’s player. “I’m defending your honour.”

Harry let out a loud exhale, and Louis felt something settle in the pit of his stomach, but he ignored it in favour of beating Liam to a pulp. “I’ll make it up to you tonight,” he said, speaking louder than he had anticipated. Niall made yet another sick sound. “I’d prefer you two not to be humping above my bunk tonight, thankyouverymuch.”

“I think I’m going to talk to Robbie for a while,” Harry said finally, just as the half time whistle blew. Niall offered Louis a drink of water, as if he had actually been playing football. Harry was, of course, referring to their bus driver who he had made a point of befriending on the very first day of the tour. It was now the night before the last day, and Louis for one couldn’t understand the appeal of Robbie as a friend. He was brash, hopelessly antisocial, and seemed to loathe Harry’s unending optimism and constant questioning (“How fast does this bus go? You have any kids? How long do you work? Are you coming back for the next tour? Can I have your Snapchat?” and so on). Yet, Harry never seemed to understand that he was a lost cause, or perhaps he was just feeling left out, and so Louis tightened his grip around Harry’s hand for just a millisecond before letting go. “Have fun,” Zayn called out, and Harry just tipped the stupid hat he’d been wearing for days and moved towards the front of the bus. Louis could see him out of the corner of his eye until he sat down, and then his view of Harry was obscured by a black wall.

Louis passed his controller over to Niall, who was on his team, and turned his attention from trying to look at Harry to shouting out encouragements to his mate as Zayn whispered pieces of advice to Liam. That was the thing about Zayn. He always provided his opinion, but it wasn’t as loud as Louis’ or as definite as Harry’s so it was often overlooked (Not by Liam).Niall scored a spectacular goal, something Harry would’ve probably knocked a glass over about, and as the slow motion played back on the screen Louis called out, “You’ve got to see this l...” before his eyes rested on the lorry right in front of the bus, growing increasingly closer with each painfully slow moment.

The brakes screeched against the road and a low, dull thud echoed through the vehicle. Whilst Zayn grasped desperately to Liam and Niall did the same, Louis just screamed out the one name that meant the most.

**“Harry!”**

*

**_Five hours after._ **

“You know, when you think about it, you never did like Robbie.”

Louis turned to look at Niall with such disgust on his features that the other boy had the right to look down at the clinical white of the floor. The air smelt like hand sanitizer and the medicine his mother used to force into him as a child. “There’s a difference between not liking Robbie and him crashing the fucking bus, Niall,” Zayn muttered from beside Louis, his arm around Louis’ waist in an attempt to be comforting, when in reality, it felt more like he was slowly suffocating him. Louis barely noticed his touch, didn’t want to accept the fact that he was sitting here in the corridor of the hospital, waiting on the verdict that would ultimately come; the doctor to look him in the eye and whisper the words he had never wanted to hear (he’d always wanted to be the one to go first).

He understood that Niall was just trying to lighten the mood, that the younger boy had disguised his gradual mental breakdown through a series of passive aggressive jokes in interviews, but there was really no way to make this situation other than what it was: Completely and utterly shit. The great love of his life was in the ICU simply because Louis hadn’t grasped on just that little bit tighter to his long fingers, hadn’t said, “You know what? Screw Fifa”, hadn’t kissed him a little harder for a little longer. It was his own self indulgence that had caused this, and maybe that was why he was so angry. If Harry had’ve stayed half on top of Louis, if him and Liam hadn’t fought that morning, if Harry hadn’t have been so fiercely determined to make Robbie like him, if, if, if.

“Ni?” Liam’s strong tone burst through the brief silence that had cloaked the group that was one short and about 50% empty. “Yeah Liam?” Niall said, with the kind of exasperation that told Louis Niall knew exactly what Liam was going to say.

“Shut up.”

Niall nodded as if his suspicions had been confirmed, and had Louis’ foot not been tapping frantically against the tiles he might’ve cracked a smile.

“It smells like death in here,” Zayn mumbled carefully, and unlike Niall who provided useless comments that held no real meaning, Zayn chose not to speak unless absolutely necessary, which made him both the best and worst person to talk to in times of a crisis. “Harry’s not going to...” Liam stopped talking, moving his head to gesture what Louis couldn’t even bring himself to think. Louis nodded determinately, his head feeling heavier than the rest of his body, like his brain was stuffed with cotton wool that was thicker than usual and that ached when he moved. Zayn pursed his lips, still looking polished despite the dark circles of worry that had developed under his eyes.

Liam murmured something under his breath to Zayn that sounded distinctly like, “Don’t”. Louis didn’t appreciate his efforts to be discreet. Ever since the accident (which had happened twenty three hours ago now but felt like it was still happening over and over again, like the slow motion goal that continued to play as the ambulance’s sirens flashed in the scarlet pooled around Harry’s curls) Liam and Zayn had been looking at him like he was a wounded animal, which he was, in fact, not. It was Harry who was injured, Harry who was lying on the crisp sheets of the hospital ward, blood streaking the skin that Louis’ lips used to move against. It was Harry that might not wake up.

The doctor came out of the room after what felt like a century, but it still wasn’t long enough for Louis to prepare himself for the water in the man’s eyes.

“Your friend was pronounced clinically dead two hours ago.”

There was a collapsing sob behind him that sounded distinctly like Niall, but it couldn’t be, it was far too broken, too animal, too final. Would Louis ever be able to look at the boys  
who’d loved Harry nowhere near as deeply as he had but yet just as passionately?

No. He wouldn’t.

Zayn slumped back against the wall and Liam just stared at the doctor, his brown eyes wide and unblinking. The doctor looked at them for longer than was necessary before adding on, “We revived him, of course, and he’s resting now. We placed him in a medically induced coma so he is expected to wake up in about a week.”

By this stage, Louis was about ready to throttle this doctor. “Expected to?” Liam echoed, moving beside Louis and looking at the man with his fists clenched. It must’ve been a natural reaction, Louis supposed. Sober, Liam was the gentlest muscular person he had ever experienced. “Will. It’s a ninety nine percent success rate,” The doctor assured hurriedly.

Louis couldn’t help but think that it was that one percent chance that the bus would crash. The paramedic had said Robbie was very lucky to have escaped with only a split head.  
He had also informed Louis that it was highly unlikely that Harry would’ve been hurt. If he’d only sat a couple inches back on the seat instead of tottering uncertainly on the edge as he had grown accustomed to, he would’ve been in Louis’ arms last night instead of Death’s.

Robbie had phoned him from the hospital whilst he was home packing a bag of clothes for Harry, even though the doctor basically had told him it was a useless practice. Harry wasn’t going to wake up (he wasn’t listening, he wasn’t listening). He had ignored the phone the first two times, but by the third his already thumping head was throbbing with the shrill pitch of the caller and he had grabbed it off the wall in a desperate attempt to shut it up. He’d always thought the whole ‘my life was perfect until that moment’ cliché was just that – a cliché. Now that he had experienced it himself, he wondered how he could’ve been happy on that day, wondered how God had allowed him to play with his mates and laugh at their jokes knowing that he was about to violently rip away the only person who had ever truly mattered.

He’d thought it would offer him some silence, or at least a welcome distraction from the way in which the flat still smelt like Harry and had their clothes strewn over the place from the morning before the tour when Louis realised, “Oh yeah, we need to pack” and they’d rushed around basically naked shoving clothes in their bags and laughing and kissing each other at every available chance (which now that Louis thought about it seemed to be the common interaction between them). Instead, Louis was forced to listen to a slightly intoxicated Robbie cry down the phone about how amazing Harry had been and how he was a good lad and he’s sorry he didn’t pay attention to the road and all that Louis could focus on was the way in which the driver used the past tense, as if the boy who had been so kind to him for the past couple of months was nothing more than a memory. The last thing the man had said was, “But most of all I’m sorry Louis, I really fucking am,” and Louis had simply responded with “No problem mate. My boyfriend just might not wake up. No biggie,” before hanging up.

It’s not that he’s mad, because he isn’t. He’s just furious, because Harry was in the ICU and Robbie wasn’t. His heartbeat was thumping in his ears and every word that driver spoke sent him further and further into insanity, which wasn’t a place he liked visiting.

“Can I see him?” Louis asked. His voice had been intended to come out strong and determined so the doctor wouldn’t have the chance to refuse him. That’s not what happened.

The man raised an eyebrow.

“Are you family?” he asked, even though Louis could tell by the look on his face he was confident he knew the answer.

“I’m his boyfriend of five years,” Louis responded. He could see the words 'but you have a girlfriend' forming on the doctor’s lips, and he really wasn’t in the mood. Thankfully, Liam spoke up, vouched for him and so the man opened up the door to Harry’s room, allowing all of the boys in (he had been meaning to only let Louis, but the four boys came as a combo deal and he was powerless to stop them). There was no seat beside the bed so Louis just crouched down beside it, thinking how beautiful Harry looked, even when he was asleep and there were gashes and cuts all over his face.

“The coma will give him a chance to recover without pain,” the nurse that hovered around the door provided. Niall spoke with her after that about Harry’s prospects, but their polite chit chat sounded like humming in Louis’ ears. He focused on the length of Harry’s eyelashes and the way in which they fluttered only slightly, moving when his chest did. He grasped onto one of his long, slender hands in both of his own and basked in the warmth; glad to feel that the coldness of death hadn’t managed to destroy him with its iron like grip. He’s holding onto Harry so tightly, so desperately that he can feel the pulse in his wrist underneath the boy’s skin, beating strong and safe, like how it used to when they slept beside each other. He looked at the boy for so long and so hard that stars started to form in his blue eyes; and by the time he forced himself to close them the initial shock was over and he was able to focus on the sound of the doctor’s voice, who had re-entered the room at some point.

“Due to the sufficient head trauma he experienced he may have retrograde amnesia through post-traumatic memory loss...”

Louis’ eyebrows furrowed, and the joy and elation he had felt at seeing Harry alive and well and not underground dissipated slightly. “What did you just say?”

The doctor looked only slightly taken aback. He paused for a moment before continuing in the same, monotone voice, as if he was just reciting a text book at medical school. “Mr Styles has been in a severe accident, Mr...”

“Tomlinson.”

“Mr Tomlinson. He can’t be expected to recover all of his brain activity immediately. I expect, due to the levels of electrical frequency sighted in the scan that he will be capable of creating new memories, but he might forget a couple of months or years preceding this event until his body recovers.”

A couple of months or years. Louis felt a stone drop in his chest. “Could he forget people?” Zayn asked, his voice low. Louis knew Zayn, and he knew the other boy was aware of  
the answer. Oh, but why did he have to ask?

The doctor pursed his lips. Louis noticed the name tag on his coat, but barely registered the word before he heard the sound he had came to loathe.

“Perhaps,” he said, not confirming nor denying anything, and God, if Louis could’ve laughed he would’ve for the irony. Don’t confirm, don’t deny, keep it neutral, keep it light. Where has he heard that consistently repeated beforehand?

“So he could forget me. Is that what you’re saying?” Louis said, and his volume had returned to him. He wasn’t sure he was happy about that. Harry always appreciated lower tones, preferred whispering to shouting and tranquillity to excitement. He was, in many ways, different to Louis but they worked somehow (a part of his brain worried that the second time round, if that’s what it came to, they wouldn’t be able to put up with each other and they’d fall apart in the usual way that couples do, which would just be adding salt to the wound because pre-accident HarryandLouis were famed for being different to other couples; so spontaneous and deep in their love for each other that there was nowhere else for them than beside the other).

“He could.”

And that’s all the permission Louis needed to get completely wasted that night, and the next, drowning thoughts of Harry in the vodka that only served to remind Louis of the nights they spent out together and the way in which that drink usually resulted in skin-on-skin and how he wasn’t going to be with him that way for such a long time. Zayn had told him to slow down, but the point was that he didn’t want to. He wanted to get so drunk that he would forget his name and how he had permanently etched himself onto his heart. He wanted to pretend for even a moment that Harry wasn’t what he revolved around, what his daily prayers thanked for and what his every waking hour was spent loving.  
“I love him so much,” Louis mumbled over his third shot, the deep feelings hazing somewhat in his mind with the alcohol. “I just love him so damn much”. After that everything was a blur of dancing and Zayn whispering words of comfort and his vision getting lost in the pools of vodka he had consumed, and God, Louis missed him and he wasn’t even dead, wasn’t alive, wasn’t awake.

He wasn’t anything, and that’s what hurt the most.

*

**_Four days after._ **

It was the Friday that Harry was scheduled to wake up and Louis had spent the morning by his side, occasionally begging the nurses to allow him to touch him for even a moment and being greeted by a resounding ‘No’ each and every time. Niall was bouncing on the soles of his feet, and when he sat down his knee jiggled, evidence of his nervousness. But the fact that he was uncertain whether Harry was going to wake up didn’t bother Louis in the slightest. He knew that Harry had survived what most people wouldn’t have; that despite all odds his brain was still alive and functioning like it should and he knew that there would come a day that he would see the green of his irises once more shining with the all-too familiar expression of love that Harry wore. So yes, Louis could say he was confident. A little bit of amnesia wouldn’t tear them apart. They’d been through so much worse.

One o’clock passed and Harry was still asleep. Two o’clock and still asleep. Three o’clock and still asleep. Ten past four and he began to wake up, being guided by a barrage of nurses and a seemingly relieved doctor. He was groggy like Louis had never seen him before, but then again Louis had only seen him wake up a handful of times. It was usually him who slept in, Harry bumbling around the house hoovering or making pancakes or writing songs in their study. His breath caught in his chest and he felt a sense of anticipation underlying the dread. Twenty to five and Dr Holden (Louis finally bothered to read the specialist’s name tag) spoke in quiet syllables to Harry.

“How are you feeling?”

Harry spoke in a deep husky voice laden with sleep. Louis had always loved it when it went like that. “I’m alright, I think,” the boy responded, and the nurse behind him jotted down his response on a piece of curling paper. “What’s your name?” Dr Holden questioned. Louis felt a jolt. Why ask such a simple question? He said it was only minor amnesia, that his memory would eventually come back.

“Harry Styles.” Normally Harry wouldn’t give his full name so freely like that, even though he was aware of the fact that everybody knew him. His name had become something of a symbol of his imprisonment, and a flutter of uncomfortable worry worked its way into Louis’ subconscious. “What age are you?”

Harry’s eyebrows furrowed as he looked down at himself. He was wearing a hospital gown so his tattoos were clearly visible along with the toned tan of his muscles. “Sixt... Sevent... I dunno,” he answered finally. The confusion was evident in his tone. Dr Holden didn’t seem surprised. Louis really hated this man.

“What’s the last thing you remember, Harry?” he asked. Zayn had mentioned something to Louis on the way to the hospital about repeating the amnesiac’s name over and over again to ingrain it in their memory (Zayn being the kind of person to research head injuries after a car crash, Louis the type to go drown himself in alcohol and bad decisions). This time, Harry answered with more confidence, speaking freely.

“I was in the line for X Factor auditions,” he began. This couldn’t go well Louis realised, but nobody else seemed to share his concern. “I remember seeing someone when I was being interviewed, in the crowd.” The doctor nodded. “Do you know who that person was?” he asked, and Louis was somewhat shocked at the softness of his features but of  
course, Harry had always been the type of person to influence affection.

Harry nodded, only a hint of hesitation in his movement. He lifted up his arm as if it was a foreign body and pointed straight at Louis. “Him,” he whispered, and Louis felt this stranger’s eyes on him but he couldn’t meet them. “Do you remember anything else?”

“I remember seeing him again on the stairs. And then I remember needing to go to the toilet and Mum was freaking out because she thought I’d miss my audition. But I assured her I wouldn’t and I searched around for the toilet and then I saw him again going through a door and I followed him and... and...”

“Don’t push yourself,” Holden suggested as the nurses propped a couple of pillows up behind Harry’s back. ‘He doesn’t like them like that’ lingered on Louis’ tongue before he thought better of it. Who was he to know how New Harry liked his bed? (Old Harry preferred to use Louis’ shoulder as a pillow, and Louis certainly hadn’t minded.)

((Old Harry had smelt like strawberries. Old Harry had enjoyed experimenting with the occasional nail polish. Old Harry had loved Coldplay and The Fray and the 1975. Old Harry had cooked the best breakfasts Louis had ever tasted but ruined every single cake he tried to bake. Old Harry had still smiled shyly at Louis with the corners of his mouth during make-out sessions. Old Harry had liked love bites on his hips.))

“Do you remember his name?” the doctor asked, pointing back at Louis.

Louis knew the answer, and he didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t want to, he didn’t want to.

But he had to.

Harry scrunched his nose together. “No. I’m sorry. Did we meet?”

The next couple of moments were a blur in Louis’ mind, and all that he could recall was Zayn leading him out of the hospital room and leaning him up against the outside wall, lighting a cigarette determinately despite the glares from passing nurses. “Take this,” Zayn commanded, and Louis was about to refuse because Old Harry hadn’t liked him smoking (but New Harry doesn’t know him).

“He doesn’t remember us meeting. He doesn’t remember. He doesn’t remember.”

And Louis just kept repeating this over and over and over again, blowing out smoke in between sentences until the pair got through all three packets Zayn had brought with him  
to a hospital of all places.

“I guess you’ll just have to meet him for a second time,” Zayn responded as he snubbed the last cigarette against the cool metal seating. Louis let out a laugh.

“And then what? Make him fall for me all over again? It was hard enough first time round.”

Zayn shook his head. “I disagree.” Louis rolled his eyes. Zayn looked over at him.

“I think he loved you from the first moment he saw you.”

And God, if that wasn’t the perfect thing to say.

*

_“I really wanted to do something as a friend, but I couldn’t.”_

_When Louis was five, maybe six years old, he remembers crying because his favourite movie (Mary Poppins) had been watched so many times that the video tape had completely_  
 _worn itself out. He had sobbed to his mother who had admitted that she just couldn’t afford to buy him a new video that week but would get it in shopping. Although he hadn’t been planning on watching it during that time anyways, he was devastated by this whole affair, so much so that it stayed with him for years. This is why he was reminded of it as the cameras rolled on and the media representatives beamed superficially from behind him, mouthing words such as ‘honestly’ and ‘be yourself’, words that sounded foreign on their botox-ed lips. He had been asked about their first live television performance, when they had sung What Makes You Beautiful and Harry’s hands had shaken like the pages of his songbook in the sea breeze. That night continued to play in Louis’ mind like a tape recording that wouldn’t run out, so being asked a question about it was a welcome distraction from the constant repetition occurring in his brain fuelled by an equal measure of guilt and pure, unadulterated love._

_Yes, he had admitted it. He was sorry to say that it had taken him more than the X Factor and less than the time filled up with touring to place a name to the burgeoning feeling in his stomach as Harry inched his way up to the front of the group, his grey-green eyes watery and wide like a doe’s. He was beautiful, his pink lips quivering in nervousness, his knuckles white around the microphone. Louis had ignored their manager’s instructions to look straight into the camera during the solo, his gaze transfixed instead on the shaking figure of his best friend. His breath was catching in his throat and his notes were somewhat flat, but it was still the most beautiful voice Louis had ever heard. It was as if Harry was the only thing that Louis could focus on, but considering the fact that that had became the case for the majority of the time they spent in the same vicinity Louis didn’t think of it as a major thing. He was wrong not to, because that night was the night that cemented in his mind what he had always known._

_Harry Edward Styles was the epitome of perfection and Louis was powerless to contain the feelings that gushed out like a tsunami tide of swelling affection for him. A laugh there, a heart here, Harry took a little bit of everyone and nobody seemed to mind. He was radiant like the sun, and God, if Louis didn’t notice every single time those dimples popped in his cheek and crave them when they didn’t. He was spontaneous without being uncaring, sensible without being boring, attractive from a young age without the typical conceit that went along with it. He was confident without being cocky at all times except the moment when he needed it the most, and Louis stood behind him willing him on with his thoughts, secretly cursing the gods for not giving them a little bit more time so they could form a proper psychic connection (Louis didn’t care if it was scientifically improbable, he just wanted Harry)._

_And his boy (no, he wasn’t his. Not yet,) didn’t speak to him for an hour after that performance, he didn’t speak to anybody. He preferred to disappear into the shadows with nothing but his phone in his hand and the sweat stained clothes on his back, and Louis was so selfish that he didn’t think of the damage that could come through that seemingly innocent piece of electronics. He was too busy drinking up the adrenalin that had built up in a sickly pit at the bottom of his stomach and dancing with the other boys who had all managed their notes that he didn’t notice the way Harry’s eyelashes drooped over his porcelain skin, didn’t notice the silent tears that slipped down his cheeks leaving broken paths in their wake._

_They had returned to their shared flat, drowning in exhaustion but buzzing on the lights. Louis had wrapped him arms around Harry in a hug tighter than all the rest had been before and whispered against the exposed skin of his neck, “You were so bloody amazing Harry.” When the other boy pulled away from the embrace and looked at Louis as if there was nothing more insensitive that he could’ve said; that was when Louis realised what was wrong with him._

_“Nobody else seemed to think so,” Harry had mumbled, obviously trying to sound sarcastic but failing miserably. His voice was still broken, like a lyrical masterpiece that had gone unpractised. Louis raised an eyebrow in confusion and Harry slipped his phone out of his pocket and placed it in the pair of smaller hands. Louis stared at the screen for a moment, looking but not truly seeing, and then his eyes focused on the words that stood out clear and black against the white pixels._

_Harry, his beautiful, amazing, perfect Harry, had been dealing with the brunt of the world’s hatred that night and Louis hadn’t been there to stop it. He knew that even if he had’ve paid more attention, even if he stayed beside Harry for every moment of his life, he still wouldn’t be able to protect the one thing that mattered the most, the one remaining piece of light in a world of darkness from the crushing realms of society._

_Alas, that was life, and good people were only good as long as they could fight (which was ironic because one of the defining moments of goodness was being unwilling to fight). Vile words were spat out in Harry’s direction, and considering the nights in which they had stayed up texting each other from the bunks and whispering into each other’s mouths without daring to crash together in the way in which gravity desired Louis was well aware of Harry’s triggers, and apparently so were these assholes._

_Both of the boys winced as Louis scrolled down through the timeline, and eventually it got to the point where Louis couldn’t take it anymore. He returned the phone to Harry, who was illuminated only by the scarce light coming in through the slanted blinds, and shook his head as if determined to forget what he had just read. Harry’s dimples appeared in his cheeks and he managed a feeble chuckle which Louis considered a success._

_“Don’t you even dare listen to them pricks,” Louis said determinately, poking Harry’s chest with his finger to emphasis his point. “Why shouldn’t I?” Harry asked, and his eyes welled up once more, his shoulders slumping. “What they’re saying makes sense. I mean, even you have to admit that I completely messed it up out there...”_

_“Harry...”_

_“And Caroline was watching and I really wanted to stick two fingers up to her and prove that I was doing good without her but I’m not, really Lou I’m not.”_

_It was as if Harry had taken a hammer from under the kitchen sink and whacked Louis in the stomach with it repeatedly until he bled and then laughed as the scarlet liquid seeped_  
 _over the stripes on his shirt. He actually had to take a few moments before he could respond to that, and even when he did, his voice came out shaky and betrayed the feelings he’d been experiencing since that moment on stage. “Is that why you were nervous? Because of Caroline?”_

_Harry blinked. His expression was one of apparent shock at the stupidity Louis had stated, and Louis would be lying if he didn’t say he felt a surge of relief flood his entire body, filling every cell, every limb, every blood vessel. “No, it’s not,” he said. “I never loved her, not really. I was kinda into somebody else.”_

_The last part was mumbled, and so Louis was unsure of what he had heard (it was too good to be true anyways, maybe it was better living in comfortable unknowing). He opened his mouth to ask him to repeat it, but Harry had skimmed over whatever it had been as quickly as he had brought it up, and so he was left with no other option than to listen even more intently than before._

_“I just wanted to... win the breakup, you know? If it even was a breakup. Can you have a breakup without a relationship? I don’t think you can, I mean every time I’ve heard of a breakup it was of somebody called boyfriend and girlfriend or girlfriend and girlfriend or boyfriend and boyfriend, you know? Speaking of which, I’ve had a boyfriend before, he was really nice and he had like tanned skin but he was also kind of a douche. I don’t know why I always go for douchey people, maybe I’m just like a light for all the asshole moths or something.”_

_He was rambling._

_“Have you been drinking?” Louis asked him, simply for the fact that Harry was just repeating facts he’d already mumbled to Louis under the cover of nightfall. Harry shook his head too quickly for it to be the truth (he had always been a bad liar, which just added to Louis’ endearment of him)._

_“Nope,” Harry answered, popping the ‘p’. “Just on a high after singing, you know? Speaking of singing, I love it. A lot. And I always thought I was kinda good at it, and I guess I am because I got off the X Factor and everything and now I’m here with you and the boys and I’m singing even though people don’t really like it. I like being with you. And the boys. I really like it.”_

_Louis smiled at Harry and led him over to the sofa, setting him down carefully. Judging by the wide look in his eyes, Louis could tell Harry had only had a skimming of beer at most. Usually when he was drunk he was handsy as hell, which served Louis just fine, but now he was maintaining a careful distance. Not too far, not close enough. “I really like being with you too,” Louis responded, leaving out the second part because it had lost its significance as an afterthought._

_Harry just looked up at Louis, his eyes bloodshot and his face slightly pink, an almost awestruck expression on his handsome features. In the past, Louis had never been particularly aware of his partner’s surroundings and had always (always) been caught off guard with the relationship’s first kiss. Now, however, he was all too sure what was about to happen, all too receptive to the way in which Harry’s face moved closer with each passing moment and the way in which his breath still smelt faintly of mint. And when Harry’s lips brushed against his own, the taste of strawberries he had always associated with him mingling with the saltiness of his tears, Louis couldn’t think of anything else he had been expecting, anything else that could’ve been a better response to the gnawing feeling in his chest._

_“Have I ruined this now?” Harry asked once they had broken apart after way too long and yet too short a time. Louis just shook his head. “Harry, nothing you could ever do could ruin this. Ruin us.” Harry smirked._

_“Are we in a romantic comedy now?” he teased with seeming relief in his tone before recapturing Louis’ lips, grinning against his mouth._

_And that was the second kiss of many._

_*_

“How’s he doing?” Louis asked, although he knew he didn’t desire the answer. Zayn, who was standing beside the window and purposefully blowing smoke out into the smoggy London air, shrugged his shoulders. “Dunno,” he answered, in his usual smooth tone. Now that the immediate danger of death had been avoided, everybody seemed to have returned to pretty much normal; a little shaken up but overall still standing. Louis was the only one to have his world crumbling down around him, piece by infuriating piece. “They won’t let me in.”

After the initial waking up and Louis’ outburst (Zayn had explained that Louis had begun screaming and crying about how he had to remember, he must remember all the things they had done together, why was this happening) the doctors were very hesitant to allow any of the boys back into the room on the basis of allowing Harry to rest. “We need to ease him into it, so he says,” Zayn said, he obviously referring to the doctor. “We can’t overload him with information or emotion, not when his mind is in such a fragile place.”  
What he was meaning was that Louis had made the situation worse by daring to have a reaction to the fact that his boyfriend of five years, his soulmate, couldn’t remember anything apart from the first time they saw each other. Louis let out a laugh, but it was humourless. “That’s rich,” he said. Zayn nodded and offered him a cigarette.

“Not that I’d condone the habit,” Zayn said in a tone that might mimic teasing, “But you look like you need it.”

“Zayn babe, I need a lot more than a cigarette right now.”

Zayn blew out smoke, but it didn’t leave through the window this time. It highlighted the brown of his eyes and the contours of his cheekbones. “If it would make you feel better...”

Old Harry had basically dedicated the last two months to keeping the marijuana out of Louis’ hands; keeping a close check on their shared bank account and on Louis’ pay checks, casting suspicious glances Zayn’s way. It would be a betrayal to his memory to go back on it now. Louis shook his head.

“Nah,” he said, flipping the cigarette back around and sliding it behind Zayn’s ear, where it was held perfectly in place by an abundance of hairspray. “I wasn’t talking about that.”

Zayn hummed in agreement, because he knew exactly what he had been talking about. Louis wasn’t addicted to any drug as much as he was desperate for Harry.

*

**_Five days after._ **

It was the second day of Harry being alive-and-not-dead, and Louis had himself convinced that this was better than nothing - some mere memory loss was better than Harry’s light flickering out completely. The sight of that scarlet liquid seeping into the tarmac of the road, the glass making it weave from side to side, haunted Louis’ nightmares that night as it had all the rest. This time however, the dream was different, and instead of Louis running up to his lover and not being able to wake him he simply moved towards him and kept going, kept walking, running, his lungs screaming out desperately until he was forced to crawl, never quite able to reach Harry, whose face was becoming hazy in his memory already. It was infuriating; so intensely infuriating. He always woke up in cold sweat.

168 hours had passed since the last time Louis counted the freckles that littered the expanse of Harry’s torso as his lips moved by every single one, hovering for only a second before making contact, Harry making little whimpers below him. Harry was always so desperate for contact; for friction and excitement and movement that he didn’t seem to understand Louis’ differing feelings. Louis liked passion, he liked frustration, he liked jealousy and he liked the reassurance that came in the form of skin-on-skin every time Harry had gone out drinking with Nick. It was just that sometimes he wanted to observe the beauty of the soul that belonged to him, only him, the other half he had been searching for.

Dr Holden had called him at ten o’clock on his work number and asked him to come to the hospital for Harry’s first therapy session. “Are any of the other boys going today?” Louis had asked with the suspicion evident in his tone. This lame excuse for a medical expert still didn’t believe the boys were anything other than friends, and Louis wished he could say that he didn’t blame him, but he did. He hadn’t spoken to Eleanor in six months, couldn’t even remember the nuances of her tone. He’d never counted her freckles, although he thinks she has them on her shoulders. “No, they’re not. We believe that since you are the only one he remembers seeing you might jog some memories.”

“That’s a lot of ‘might’s,” Louis pointed out. The doctor ignored his comment. “When can you come, Mr Tomlinson?”

“I’ll be there in five minutes.”

There wasn’t even a parting message before the line clicked off. Louis looked down at his iPhone for a second, wondering just how everything that could possibly go wrong with  
his life had done so already, and before he knew it he was staring at the glass that surrounded his phone as it lay at the base of the living room wall.

*

The smell of the hospital was so achingly clean that it was almost repellent. The staff were cold and unfeeling; buzzing with only polite conversation and their typical professional walk, as if the sights they have seen had drained them of their humanity. Not one turned to look at Louis or direct him to where he was meant to be going, so he stayed there awkwardly in the middle of the corridor, shuffling on his feet. A nurse rushed past and knocked into Louis’ shoulder, turning to face him for only a moment to call out a rushed apology. Her grey eyes were wide and had bags of stress underneath them, and a speck of blood creates a button on her otherwise pristine tunic, the red all Louis could see amongst the white. He struggled to ask her where he is supposed to be, but before he can pluck up the courage she is gone, her ugly shoes scuffling along the sticky vinyl floor.

Sounds of patients hacking and coughing up what sounds like the last of their meagre lifespan surrounded him, threatening to close in on him from the inside out. Louis had always had an admiration for his mother who worked as a nurse for most of her adult life, but after his first experience of a hospital he’d never quite thought of them the same. He’d always believed that it was nothing other than just a simple building; built on the standings of easy hygienic practices, but after that day in which he accompanied his mother to work and witnessed the wailing of a mother who had lost her newborn child he began to see them as an oversized coffin. This hospital in particular was famous for only one thing; it was the building in which you went to die. That’s why Harry had been sent here, and that’s why, after they had resuscitated him, he had lost his appeal as a patient. In a couple of weeks he’d be leaving the hospital whether he was ready or not. Mental illnesses such as amnesia were not the same calibre as cancer, for example (Louis could understand, but that didn’t mean he had to agree).

He must’ve stood there for ten minutes before a kind faced receptionist stood up from her station and made her way over to him, resting her slightly sweaty palms on the bareness of his upper arm. He struggled to stay still, willed himself not to push her away and grab some of that disinfectant off the wall to get the feel of hospital off of his skin. He focused instead on the soothing sound of her voice. “Where are you meant to be, love?” she asked, and she reminded him of his mother. Louis mumbled the room number that the doctor had emailed him and the receptionist smiled, a slight dimple appearing in her right cheek.

“You’re on the entirely wrong floor then, sweetie,” she exclaimed, and her ash blonde hair bobbed about in the bun on top of her head. “Here, I’ll walk you there.” Louis mumbled a thank you and followed her, a half step behind as she practically skipped down the corridor. She looked relatively young, only a few years older than Louis himself, which probably explained why she could continue to live while she was alive, to have a spring in her step as if she wasn’t trampling over graves.

“I’m Mary,” she said as they stepped into the elevator, which looked distinctly like the one there was at Westfield Shopping Centre. At least this meant that Louis could pretend for even a moment that he wasn’t in a labyrinth of decay. “Louis,” he said, swallowing the lump that had formed in his throat. Mary smiled at him, her teeth slightly crooked but decidedly endearing, and pressed the button for a floor that was at least five away from the one they were on now. Louis felt the all too familiar prickle of heat on his cheeks at his misdirection.

Mary must’ve noticed, because she placed her hand back on Louis’ arm, further down this time so it was closer to his wrist than his armpit. “It’s okay. You look like you have a lot on your mind.” Louis laughed because it was such an understatement, and then hurriedly quieted himself. He couldn’t seem to follow social cues lately, which had been proven last night when Zayn had phoned for a chat and he could barely remember how to say hello. “Who is it?” Mary asked, and Louis inhaled sharply before answering.  
“My boyfriend of five years,” he said, as if the length of time mattered anymore now that Harry couldn’t remember it. Mary pursed her lips in a seemingly sympathetic line. “I would say I’m sorry to hear that, but I’m not. I’m sorry that it happened, not that I’m hearing it.”

And even though she was probably looking into that expression more than the average person would’ve, Louis appreciated her discretion. They stood in silence for a few more moments until they were a mere floor away from his boy. Mary pulled a small notebook out of the top pocket of her tunic and a pen from the one situated beside her hip and scrawled down a number in perfectly messed up handwriting. “My sister had amnesia,” she explained when Louis raised his eyebrow. She pressed the scrunched piece of paper into Louis’ hand. “If you need anybody, don’t hesitate to call me, okay?”

Louis looked down at the note even though the numbers just looked like incomprehensible squiggles with the tears forming in his eyes. He blinked them away and looked back up at Mary and her obnoxiously big brown eyes. “Why are you giving me this?” he asked, because this wasn’t her job. Mary just shrugged at that and the elevator doors dinged before opening.

“Because I like you Louis, that’s why,” she answered, and then she pointed down the hall to a door that was labelled with the address the doctor had emailed him and Louis thanked her, as if all she had done was show him the way.

*

“Who are you again?”

This was the third time Harry had asked this, his tone becoming more apologetic. Louis couldn’t tell if it was the amnesia that was causing him to be such a bad listener or the fact that he just didn’t give a shit about him anymore.

“I’m Louis,” he said, using the same voice as he had when his sisters had insisted on covering his thirteen year old face with makeup; patient, kind, but slightly warning. The tips of Harry’s ears were poking out from behind his hair, going slightly red. The therapist sitting on the chair beside Louis shot him a poignant glance, and so Louis convinced himself to move on to another riveting topic of conversation.

“Are you feeling any better?”

Harry lifted his head up at that to answer, the green of his irises only slightly greyer than they had been pre-accident. “A bit,” he admitted, although to Louis it didn’t sound like he  
was convinced. “I mean, my head was really hurting yesterday but it’s getting alright now, and the doctor says my mum’s coming soon and so that should be good, you know, to see a familiar face, besides you of course.”

That last part sounded more like an afterthought and so Louis didn’t see the point in dwelling on it. “That’s good. She was really worried about you, you know.” The therapist, Mandy, shuffled uncomfortably in her seat. Harry’s gaze returned to his interlocked hands.

“Mr Tomlinson, remember to keep subjects light,” she said, and Louis nodded although it was difficult. Zayn had mentioned to him prior to his trip to the hospital that he’d probably be briefed on what to mention and what not to.

In the ‘do not mention under any circumstances’ pile there was the issue of their long lived relationship. So, as far as Harry was concerned, they had become friends after being placed in a band together and had shared a flat for a good four years and that’s as far as it went. Louis was about to argue with but the doctor said that as Harry progressed they could gradually inform him of more of what happened so he kept silent for now.

“I didn’t think I’d be the kind to leave Mum at sixteen,” Harry said to lift the silence that had settled over the room. Now it was Louis’ turn to find the stiffness of the seat upon which he was sitting unbearably uncomfortable. “Where did you say we lived again?”

“London,” Louis answered simply for the second time that day. “We live in London, Harry.”

“Lived,” the therapist countered. Louis’ eyebrow jutted upwards as he rolled his eyes just out of her periphery. He could say he was shocked when he heard the careful laughter of the boy in the hospital bed, and when he turned to look Louis almost dared to believe that this was still Harry, the old one, not this new stranger that forgot their life together. His eyes were sparkling with amusement and the dimples in his cheeks were not as deep as they had been before, but they were there, clearly visible on his porcelain skin. By the time Mandy looked back around Harry had managed to stifle his giggles, but was still quaking slightly in his bed.

They sat there in silence again, slightly awkwardly shuffling around. There was a moment of eye contact between the two boys, but as Louis looked into Harry’s soul and saw nothing but mild confusion instead of the deep affection that there had been before he couldn’t take it anymore. “I better get on,” he said to Mandy, rather than speak to Harry. She nodded and made her lips into a thin line, as if she had been expecting this (the expression she wore made Louis all the more determined to sit back down again, but if he had’ve he would’ve exploded, he knows that).

“Will you be back tomorrow?” Harry asked with a casually curious tone to his voice. Louis felt his breath hitch in his chest. “If you want me to,” he mumbled against the door of the hospital room. “I think I’d like that,” was the response.

Louis slammed the door closed so suddenly that it knocked the leaflets off a poorly placed table in the corridor. Zayn was sitting on the floor with a packet of cigarettes in his hands. Louis wasn’t sure when he had gotten there, but he didn’t care, he didn’t care. “Wanna go outside?” Zayn asked in his careful tone. Louis nodded. The tsunami tides roaring inside his eyes were threatening to splash out onto his cheeks, so Zayn slung his arm around his shoulder and this time, it felt like a hug.

They leaned against the wall of the hospital. It was out the back for safety’s sake and Paul was hovering around them like a bitch in heat. Louis would be lying if he told himself it wasn’t stifling; the affections of others and the well-wishers that had left gifts on their previously shared doorstep. Hell, even Grimshaw had phoned, as if he had the right to know what was happening after all he had done. Louis had told him politely to screw off back to whatever hole he climbed out from and Grimmy had responded with an equally respectful “you think you’re the shit because he fucked you a couple times”.

Grimmy was wrong. He knew the way LouisandHarry worked, the way they had been together. Louis knew somewhere in the deepest recess of that man’s brain there was a sliver of euphoria that this had happened, that perhaps he had a chance now that Harry couldn’t remember Louis. The joke was on him though, because Harry had known Nick for a shorter time than he had been in the band and if he didn’t remember all the times they had slept together then he surely wouldn’t recall going out drinking with an ancient radio presenter.

“How’d therapy go?” Zayn asked him, breathing in the chemicals that would most likely be the very substances to kill him. Louis placed the cigarette on his thin, chapped lips and lit it with the fluency of somebody who had been smoking in back alleys behind his boyfriend’s back for years.

“How the hell did you think it went?” Louis answered with another question and Zayn didn’t respond as Niall would’ve (telling him to calm down, he was just asking because he  
cared). Instead, he just shrugged his shoulders and took another long drag, taking the same care over blowing out the smoke as Harry used to with his words.

“Judging from your delightful mood I’m guessing it went terribly.”

“Hit the nail on the head.” One cigarette later and Louis decided to expand on this, because Zayn sure as hell wasn’t asking him to and the silence was like death. “I had to be so polite with him and shit, you know? Because I don’t know what he remembers and what he doesn’t. Fuck, I don’t even know who he is. Are we even together anymore? Should I be thinking about that right now?”

“What else would you be thinking about?”

“Well, Harry’s gone.”

“No, he’s not.”

Louis looked at Zayn for a moment, feeling the exasperation with this boy building up in his chest along with the anxiety. “You know, for just a moment you could stop being so detached from everything,” Louis said, and he wasn’t sure why he was saying this, because Zayn was anything but detached. He was so passionate about everything; only different from Harry because he didn’t show his emotions on his face as easily. “I fucking loved him, okay?”

“And you think I didn’t?”

That was a good point. It only irritated Louis more.

“Not in the same way, Zayn!” he protested. “Not in the same way. He wasn’t a part of everything you were, he wasn’t the person you slept beside, the person you kissed, the person you fucked up constantly with but still loved you the same. He wasn’t your person.”

Had Nick Grimshaw been there, Louis thought bitterly, he would’ve said that Harry wasn’t his either. “Harry belongs to himself, Louis,” he said. “He loves everybody, and someone  
who gives affection away that easily cannot possibly have enough to dedicate to one person. He’s not exclusively yours.”

But Zayn wasn’t Nick. He snubbed the cigarette against the back of the hospital, making a burn mark in the crisp, newly painted white. “You’re right. I can’t know how you feel. I can’t know the pain you must be going through. You have to deal with everything and I have to deal with nothing but, Harry was...”

He paused for long enough to make even Louis notice the hesitation settling in the air. He only briefly noticed the smell of a thunderstorm surrounding him. “Harry was?”

The other boy’s brown eyes lit up with the fire from the lighter. “Harry was Harry.”

And wasn’t that what made an amazing person; that they could act as an adjective and have it make perfect sense?

Harry wasn’t anything other than Harry. And that’s why Louis couldn’t bring himself to love anybody else.

*

_“Hey Lou,” Harry muttered under the cover of dawn. The sun was rising slowly over the landscape, not that Louis could see its beauty for the vertical blinds that covered the_  
 _window. The other boys were asleep, their chests rising and falling perfectly in time with each other. “Hey Harry,” he said, and Harry giggled against his chest, the dimples popping beautifully in his cheeks._

_They were sleeping beside each other as they had done so many nights before, and this was a couple of months before the kiss that changed everything. This was the couple of months in which Louis shifted between wanting to screw Harry over a table and wanting to get down on one knee and propose._

_“Can I ask you something?” Harry asked, and Louis felt a tightening of anticipation in his chest, along with the dirtiness that usually accompanied it (guys shouldn’t think the things he did about their best friend). “Anything,” he muttered, trying not to sound as if he was completely whipped; as if Harry asking him to jump off a bridge wouldn’t be met with a, ‘As long as you kiss me afterwards’._

_Harry smiled against the outline of Louis’ collarbones. They stuck out more than was normal, Louis had always believed, but Harry seemed to find them the definition of perfection (and really, if Harry found them attractive then nothing else mattered in the world besides these bones, plain and simple)._

_“If you had feelings for someone, you’d tell them, wouldn’t you?”_

_Okay, so it wasn’t the heat of the room that was making Louis break out into a sweat. He couldn’t bring himself to speak; he merely nodded._

_“Yeah, I thought so,” Harry mused. “You always seemed the type to tell people your feelings.”_

_Louis had always believed in the advice that if you loved someone, you should tell them. You should tell them so often and so repeatedly that they have no option but to believe you as much as you believed in it yourself. What was the point in hiding emotions? What was the point in pretending Harry wasn’t the defining moment of each and every day? Louis had always believed this was such simple advice to follow; you feel it, you say it, and don’t let anything stand in your way. But Harry was also the definition of inner conflict. God, he loved him, he knew that more than he knew himself. But did Harry love him?_

_Probably not. What was there to love in a boy so inherently pathetic that he can’t even bring himself to tell his own girlfriend that he wasn’t really all that into her anymore?_  
 _Louis nodded again. Harry sighed against his neck, seemingly not noticing how Louis shivered under his breath._

_This was ridiculous._

_“Do you like someone, Harry?” Louis asked, simply to hurry the process up. He just wanted to kiss him already, and if all those stupid romantic comedies had taught him anything it was that this was the perfect lead-up to a declaration of feelings. There might even be tears._

_Harry smiled knowingly. Louis couldn’t see his expression but he could feel his lips curling upwards against his own skin just as he could feel his own pulse beating in his throat. “Maybe,” he teased, drawing out the words. “Spill it,” Louis spat, and thankfully Harry seemed to find this hilariously funny because he laughed for a good few moments before continuing._

_Louis noticed how Harry never met his eyes, not even for a moment. Maybe that should’ve told him right there and then that his previous expectations of this conversation was going to be horribly misdirected._

_“Well, they’re really pretty, like insanely so. They have this really nice hair, it’s like brown, and a really nice shaped face and their body is just superb. Like their ass? It makes me want to go to heaven, if heaven had asses.”_

_Holy shit._

_“And there’s a little bit of an age gap, but that’s no big deal, right? I can be mature.”_

_Two year age gap, two year age gap._

_“Anyway, even if people would think it was weird that I chose this person I don’t really give a fuck.” Harry let out a laugh, slightly exhilarated in the only way that a sixteen year old_  
 _swearing can be. “I don’t give a fuck! God, I think I might be seriously falling.”_

_“Just ask them Harry,” Louis said, the words tasting sweeter than anything had before. “Like, right now.”_

_“Right now?” His eyebrows raised only a fraction. “Like, at the crack of dawn? When I’m in bed half naked?”_

_“What better time to do it?”_

_Harry looked contemplative for only a second before saying, “Fuck it,” one more time, his bright green eyes reflecting spontaneity. “I’m going to do it.”_

_He was going to do it, and everything was going to be okay. He was going to say ‘Iloveyou’ in the way that Louis had been dreaming about it, and Louis would say it back, and they’d repeat it to each other until they had memorised the way their lips moved as they did so. They would probably think about it for a while, and Louis would break up with Hannah saying he had just fallen for somebody else like she knew he would, and Harry would make him pancakes in the morning as he had during the X Factor. Louis would teach him how to play football and they’d laugh over golf together, and Harry would probably be the kind to pick up really random pieces of interior decor and they’d live together. God, he’d wake up to this beauty every morning. Everything would be fine after this, because they’d be together (except he wasn’t talking about Louis)._

_Harry grinned stupidly and ruffled Louis’ hair in the way his second cousin used to at weddings. He leaned over to reach for his phone and typed in Caroline’s number._

_He talked to her for four hours that night._

_Louis said he had to go to the bathroom, and when he was sure the door was locked he allowed himself to break down, screaming at himself internally for his stupidity._

_Beautiful like Harry didn’t go for people like Louis. It just didn’t happen._

_Harry and Caroline._

_Harry and Louis._

_Which sounded better?_

_*_

**_Six days after._ **

On the third day of Harry being awake and not dead, Louis found himself restricted from returning to the hospital, instead trapped in a way too early in the morning meeting to ‘discuss their options’.

A soulmate is the person who brings out the best qualities in you. They make you feel as if nothing could go wrong in the world when you’re with them, like you’re on top of a  
mountain and could shout your feelings to the thousands and everybody would accept you without question because they saw how unbelievingly happy you were. Love was based on the times that you smiled into the kiss, relishing the feeling of their skin against yours as the rain beats down on the roof of the car, but it is also comprised of those moments which are even more significant. The nights in which you have arguments; that one fight that causes slamming on doors and tears that just won’t stop. That argument that leaves your bed empty for that night as your sobs soak the pillowcase, smelling the remnants of their scent on the cushions.

That’s when you truly care about somebody, when you’re about to lose them. That’s when you realise just how much you would miss them, just how much you rely on their steady presence in your life. By that definition, there was no doubt in Louis’ mind that Harry was indeed his soulmate, and that he had probably been dropped down by the gods simply to make him forget how to breathe.

The only issue with this realisation was that admitting who he loved would ruin everything. It would burn his world down to the ground and destroy everything he had worked towards, everything he had dreamed of, imagined, spoken in his sleep about. The feelings that had settled in his stomach over the past five years could singlehandedly destroy the world’s biggest boy-band, cost millions in damages and ultimately affect the other boys in which he had invested. For this reason and this reason alone, the higher-ups in the music business were determined to keep the relationship strictly under wraps. This whole horrible situation would show just how much Louis cared, and they couldn’t have that, could they?

“What do you suggest then?” Louis asked quite sharply from his seat. It was one of those large office chairs designed to give him the impression that he had some kind of power over his own decisions when in fact nothing was further from the truth. It was a psychological thing; these managers with their wrinkled foreheads and their loveless marriages didn’t seem to get that Louis was intelligent enough to know what was going on. He wasn’t the eighteen year old boy he had been in the X Factor; all wanderlust and star-struck by Harry and the idea that they could travel the world together singing. He refused to be trapped again once this contract expired.

There were a few murmurs from several different representatives around the table, and finally one voice spoke out above all the others. He was wearing a very expensive looking jacket and a pitifully small shirt that strained against the expanse of his stomach. “We believe it would be best to keep Mr Styles away from the press for the next couple of months,” he said, and Louis raised an eyebrow in surprise.

“You’re actually suggesting something useful,” Louis pointed out when the manager looked over at him, not able to keep the shock out of his tone. A few of the men chuckled nervously under their breath and then the room’s attention returned to the speaker. He was blushing quite profusely at the interruption; the redness of his face reminding Louis distinctly of a stuffed pig.

He fixed his tie, making it worse in the process before continuing. “Yes, well, as I was saying,” he began, and Louis sniggered internally. “Mr Styles will be confused for a few months and so for this time period it may be best for the entire band to fade away for a while. It’s an unfortunate situation, but really, there is nothing else for it.”

The rest of the boys were at this meeting as well, not that their opinions would be considered anyways. Louis’ main concern was for Harry, and as far as he could tell management were looking out for his best interests (he was yet to consider what the catch was). They took a quick vote of the boys and there was a unanimous decision.

“We’re not a band without Harry,” Liam said, all previous anger towards the other boy erased from his voice. “It’s all of us or none,” Zayn agreed, his fingers brushing against Liam’s wrist to show his support. Niall hummed in agreement, and just like that, One Direction was put on break.

*

**_Seven days after._ **

Louis was sitting outside the hospital ward with a bunch of flowers held awkwardly in his hand (red roses, Harry’s favourite). Mary was sitting beside him having finished her shift ten minutes ago. “Are you sure you don’t have to go home?” Louis must’ve asked about twenty times as they waited. Her blonde head just nodded each time, and she shot him a comforting smile. “Believe me, here’s better than an empty apartment,” she said, and each time she did Louis found himself feel more and more connected to her. They were much the same; both enthusiastic about things and fans of bad jokes, both affected by amnesia in the lives of their loved ones.

The visit wasn’t worrying Louis, not exactly. It was more that he wasn’t sure how to speak with Harry now that they hadn’t met. It was different in the bathroom; they were there due to fate’s own interruptions. They had so many things to talk about, so many things to learn about each other. He knew deep within himself that he would listen to Harry speak all day every day about himself without a second of hesitation, but it was the fact that perhaps he just wasn’t interesting enough to this once again sixteen year old mind. He was much older in this boy’s eyes, two years a mere number that didn’t nearly encompass the distance between them. Mary seemed to understand this, and so for this reason Louis accepted her presence whilst he rejected everyone else’s, even Zayn’s.

“Only a couple more minutes to go,” Mary mused, leaning back against the cool metal of the seats. They were uncomfortable in a way that must’ve been designed. Everything about hospitals screamed out against homeliness and familiarity, and so Louis wasn’t surprised to discover their choices of seating coincided with this. “How’s Trey?” Louis asked. Mary looked down at her interlocked hands at the subject of her sister.

“She’s okay,” she said, but Louis knew that was a lie. “She’s remembering some stuff from her childhood, like when we used to go to the play-park and stuff. It’s hard because she doesn’t really want to remember, you know?”

Louis pursed his lips, picking at the rag-nail on the side of his thumb. Mary turned to look at him, her grey eyes swimming in a well concealed fatigue. “Harry’s different, you know,” she said, and this time it didn’t sound as if she was questioning him. “He wants to learn about his past, he said so when I visited him a while ago. I wish Trey was like that.”  
He wasn’t sure what to respond to that which is why he was thankful that he didn’t have to. Mandy walked up behind them and cleared her throat. “Mr Tomlinson,” she said. Louis stood up from his seat, pushing off the loose dust from his jeans. Mary passed him up the flowers which he had dropped in his haste and caught a glimpse of his thankful smile. “Mandy,” he replied, following her into the room.

Harry was already sitting up in the bed, his hair more curly than it was the day before. It was still long, hanging down just above his shoulders in soft ringlets. He had been reading a magazine that had obviously came from the rack at the bottom of the bed, and his cheeks were slightly pink as he pushed it to the side. It fell off the edge of the bed and he scrambled to get it back, blushing profusely now. Louis ignored his flustering and sat down on the seat beside the bed, managing a faint smile as he passed over the roses.

“They’re for you,” he muttered, as if that wasn’t already obvious (he was passing the flowers to him after all. What was it about a sixteen year old Harry that made him go completely retarded?). This just made Harry go even more crimson as he gripped onto the flowers, bearing a significant resemblance to the petals both for his colour and his delicacy. “Thank you,” the younger boy murmured as he smelt the gift, his eyebrows furrowing slightly in confusion. “It’s very nice of you. Louis?”

God, he hated it. He hated the way that Harry looked far too soft and bright-eyed to be in this place. He hated the way that his name sounded like a question upon his lips. He hated the fact that he had to pretend that this was a friendly gesture rather than a declaration of the love he’d been feeling for years.

Louis nodded. Mandy motioned from the other side of the bed for him to smile and so he did so, but it must’ve been too watery to be construed as genuine. “They’re your  
favourite,” he said finally, motioning towards the flowers. Harry was taking them out of their wrapping and placing them gently in a tall glass of water sitting on his bedside cabinet. They were the only source of light in a darkened room apart from the boy sitting in hazy confusion.

Harry grinned at him, a genuine smile with dimples forming in his cheeks. “They are,” he said, slightly surprised. “How did you know?”

*

_Louis had never been so downright clingy before (he blamed Harry and his spectacular eyes and his beautiful ass and his downright delectable thighs)._

_They’d been together six months at the last count and had been so tantalisingly close to sleeping together more times than he could bear to think about. Harry had sex with one person before (that damn stupid asshole Caroline) and he’d never been this close to being with a boy and he really, really liked Louis and he didn’t want to mess it up, so if they could just wait for a while that would be amazing because he wanted to be ready even though he didn’t think he’d ever really be good enough._

_The fact remained that Louis didn’t want to wait. He knew that he would, knew that if it took six weeks or ten years or fifty decades he wouldn’t care. Harry was worth waiting for. It was just that he fell so deeply every time Harry’s long fingers worked their way along the waistband of Louis’ trousers as they kissed, moans reverberating through their bodies, his skin burning where he had touched._

_So in actual fact Louis was compensating by being affectionate to a point where it sickened even himself; fixing Harry’s hair when there was even a strand out of place, making him tea at insane hours of the morning and night to help him get back to sleep and buying him things wherever he went._

_It was a rainy April morning when he went to the shop to get milk. Harry had a breakdown in the middle of the kitchen over the fact that Louis had dared to buy skimmed milk instead of semi skimmed, apparently a crime worthy of life imprisonment. The temperature was lower than it had been for months and Louis didn’t have a coat that wasn’t in the wash, but he was so whipped and so desperate to see Harry happy (because when that boy wasn’t smiling the entire goddamn world was sad) that he headed out in nothing but an oversized sweater and a thin pair of red jeans. It just so happened that whilst he was thoroughly drenched and holding the freezing milk in his aching hands his eyes rested upon a particularly perfect bunch of ruby red roses that shone like beacons above the cashier’s head. He had asked her to get them for him (refusing to admit that it was because he wasn’t tall enough) and she had smiled saying, “For your special someone?”_

_Louis had nodded and started gushing over Harry using gender neutral pronouns in the way that only Styles could have taught him. The worker just smiled in a fond way that old people did to their grandchildren and commented, “Well your girlfriend is very pretty Mr Tomlinson. You’re obviously very in love.”_

_How else was he supposed to respond than to purse his lips and fake a smile, bow his head and run back out into the pouring rain? He couldn’t have said, “Actually, my boyfriend_  
 _is prettier than anyone else ever could be and he’s waiting for me at home and I’m probably going to get made out with for going and buying this milk”. That was out of the question._

_Harry had loved the flowers just like Louis had known he would, and he’d smirked at him with pinkness to his cheeks and a dimple popping. “If I didn’t know you any better_  
 _Tomlinson,” Harry had purred, his breath making little indents on the skin of Louis’ neck. “I’d say you were trying to seduce me.”_

_“Who said anything about trying?” he had responded and their teasing never ended with anything other than the crashing of their mouths and the explosions that resulted from their touch and Louis couldn’t think of anything other than_

_Harry_

_Harry_

Harry.

*

“Tell me the story again,” Harry said, his eyes sparkling against the white of the hospital gown. Louis’ mind was a foggy abyss, clouded by the smell of antiseptic and latex gloves,  
but he managed to smile at the boy and humour him.

He had been asked three times now to recount how their rise to fame sprawled out, each telling only provoking more excitement from the younger boy. Louis supposed that it was a good thing to be feeding him so much information as Mandy was sitting silently writing down frantically in her notepad instead of speaking, providing a break from her nasally tone (Louis knew he was being a meaner person than he ever wanted to be, knew that if Old Harry had’ve been here he would’ve known simply by the expression on his face that he was exhausted with all this hypocrisy; but the one good thing about it was that New Harry had no idea whether to be mad at him or not because he didn’t know him).

“Well we all got through auditions,” Louis began, and Harry burst in, determined to answer like a five year old in a classroom. “You, me, Niall, Liam and Zayn,” he said. There was a questioning lilt to his voice so Louis nodded before continuing. “There wasn’t enough places for them to put us all through, so Simon called us all in.”

“And he said we’d be good as a group?” Harry said. Louis grinned despite himself, thinking that maybe there might be a chance of him saying something that would remind Harry of who he was supposed to be, that he was supposed to be holding onto Louis’ hand and kissing the tips of his fingers, mumbling over and over again about how he was so scared he’d forgotten him but that he could never not remember, their memories were too deeply ingrained in all of his being, deep within his soul. Everything that they had experienced so far in their short lives, everything they had dreamed of and spoken under the cover of night, under the streetlights of more cities than Louis could count on one hand, everything that was so inherently theirs was far too precious just to fade into black. Louis himself knew that without Harry to remember with he’d forget also, and that HarryandLouis would become a faint, distant light shining through the endless darkness.

“Yeah Harry,” Louis said. He thought about how Simon had came to say that Louis and Harry made a good pair, that they were the nucleus of the group and brought smiles upon everybody’s faces with their affections but how it was a dangerous game to play; to love so deeply at such a young age. He used this as the excuse to condone the closeting they went through for years afterwards, clouding his true motivations underneath the pretence of genuine concern for the boys. “What happened then?” Harry asked, his movements screaming enthusiasm.

Louis picked at the rag-nail on the side of his thumb as he looked at the man sitting in front of him, the man that didn’t remember his own maturity. This man was still, in his own mind, a sixteen year old boy trapped in a foreign body.

They had gone to Harry’s father’s bungalow afterwards, of course, to ‘bond’. Those days had basically consisted of Zayn rolling his eyes at Niall and Harry’s stupidity, his apparent distaste in their humour not enough to mask the fondness that was manifesting inside of him. Niall had sang at the top of his voice at any moment that he could, laughing and drinking as if his life depended on it whilst Harry grinned away, Louis falling harder and harder with every goddamn smile. Liam had just sat in the corner listening to the good times roll, never contributing much to the merry. Louis had known he felt left out, and so he tried to involve the serious boy in their various activities to his own detriment. His concern for the boy turned into a yearlong feud, carefully concealed underneath fake jokes and even faker smiles so that the fans never knew the difference.

Louis had known he had feelings for Harry during that time, of course he had. He just chose to hide them deeply amongst the careless touches and the jokes that cut a little too close for comfort. He couldn’t stomach the fact that Harry might not feel as desperately as he did. He prided himself on maintaining a cool outer appearance, something that was becoming increasingly easy with the media training they were going through. He was the kind of person who hid behind sarcasm and thinly veiled defensive humour, but with Harry, everything was different. God, even his mum knew he was in love with Harry just by the way he spoke about him on the phone.

One of the days stood out in particular to Louis each time he thought about that week, when the TV was blaring in the corner of the living room. The light was hitting against Harry’s face, emphasising his soft features in the darkness. He was all pretty, no visible flaws to be seen or heard, and Louis’ fingers were entwined with his in a way that was not in any way platonic. Their torsos were pressed tightly together as they lay on the sofa, a soft smile lingering upon Louis’ chapped lips. They had been watching football as the other boys slept on the floor, and although Harry wasn’t particularly a fan of the sport he would watch it with Louis, occasionally sprouting a question or two about the team. Other than that, they barely spoke throughout the match, somewhere along the way making it an unspoken rule between them as well as the necessity to have popcorn and Coke on hand at all times. Louis liked the idea that they were building their own little traditions so early on and dreamt about the way in which ten years from now they would be sitting in their own house with more inside jokes than they could count. That’s why he was slightly surprised when Harry lifted his head from Louis’ chest, his cheeks flushed and red from the heat of their bodies.

“I have to tell you something,” he had murmured, his voice sounding hesitant. Louis had barely noticed as he wrapped his arm around his best friend, leaning on the edge of his seat in anticipation. “Okay Harry,” he had said. “Can it wait until after this goal?”

The screen was being watched with rapt attention and an almost childish excitement, and so Louis had just assumed that Harry was just going to ask another question about the team, or perhaps say that they had run out of popcorn due to the fact that the curly haired boy ate most of it before the game even began.

“It’s really important.”

This in itself wouldn’t have made Louis turn his eyes away from the game - he was likely to assume that Harry was just messing with him and was probably going to say something stupid – but the look on the younger boy’s face as he said those three words tugged at Louis’ heartstrings. A lump had formed in his throat, probably from the flipping feeling that had settled in his stomach. “Is it bad?” Louis whispered, ignoring the cheering coming from the television as the opposing team scored a goal.

Harry had paused for a few seconds as if deliberating, and this made Louis even more anxious as he waited for an answer. “Depends on what you class as bad,” he said finally, avoiding eye contact. He had pulled his body away from the other boy’s and was sitting on the opposite end of the sofa. It was a metre that felt like a mile. Louis remained where he had been but continued to stare at Harry.

“Does anybody else know about it?” he murmured. Harry began to twiddle his thumbs like he tended to do when he was nervous. A small crease appeared on his forehead, his plump pink lips turned into a sad pout. “Yeah,” he said. “But it’s not something I’d like getting out.”

Another cheer echoed from the TV, and it was evident from the sheer volume of the screams that the game was over, one of the teams had won. Louis didn’t dare move his gaze from Harry to look at the score. “Oh Harry,” he breathed. “What did you do?”

Harry let out a groan and lay back on the sofa, running a hand through his mop of curly hair. They were speaking in mumbled whispers so as not to wake the other boys, and the quiet was only amplifying Louis’ panic. “It’s not what I did, more like who I am.”

What the hell was that supposed to mean?

Louis’ voice cracked as he pleaded; something he preferred never to do. “Harry, please. Stop messing with me. Just tell me, tell me please.”

Green met blue. There was a jump in his chest, his pulse rate increasing at contact. He had rarely seen Harry speaking this seriously; he himself was rarely this serious, preferring instead to take everything as a joke and pretend that nothing could phase him when really he was sick of being misunderstood (he had thought Harry was the only one who had  
understood him).

“I’m bisexual, Louis.”

All traces of nervousness had disappeared from Harry’s tone for only that moment before reappearing. He spoke so surely, so on top of everything, so calm and uncaring of people’s opinions for a brief time that Louis fell a little bit more.

He wasn’t so sure what his own reaction meant. He had simply sat there in muted shock, his mouth hanging slightly ajar, his eyes wide and shocked. He felt as if he had been repeatedly punched in the stomach and thrown to the ground, but then there was another feeling, a warm one that enveloped him and filled his mind with delirious happiness.

“Please say something.”

He had almost forgotten Harry was still there, suffering in the silence just as Louis had been only mere minutes before. How long had Louis sat there, taking in this revelation? Five minutes? Ten?

“You like girls... and boys?”

It had been hoped that something else would slip out of his mouth, something reassuring; something that would wipe that painful sadness of Harry’s gorgeous face and make his dimples pop in a smile.

“Yeah,” Harry whispered, a soft blush tingeing his cheeks. “Kinda. Is that okay?”

There had been the meekness, the need for reassurance that Harry seemed to crave so desperately. It was at that moment that Louis had realised that it was actually Harry talking to him, his Harry. His Harry was bisexual. He liked both genders, liked boys...

“It’s actually perfect, to be honest,” Louis whispered, a small smile creeping up onto his cheeks that mirrored Harry’s. His hand went up to Harry’s face, his thumb wiping away the  
tear that had formed there. “Everything about you is perfect.”

That was one day that Louis decided not to tell New Harry about. He just wouldn’t understand.

“We went to the bungalow,” Louis said finally, receiving a satisfied smile from Mandy over Harry’s shoulder. He quelled the wave of rage that sparked from deep inside his gut, thinking about how it wasn’t for this asshole of a counsellor he was censoring Harry’s past. It was for this little boy, this teenager, sitting and looking at Louis as if he held the secrets to his entire existence. Which, Louis supposed, he did.

“What did we do in the bungalow?”

“Not what I wanted to.”

The answer came before Louis could stop it. His main vice, according to a bevy of balding executives and press managers, was that he had a big mouth. He was unpredictable, uncontrollable; not to be let outside without careful supervision in case he did something completely stupid. He’d heard variations of this his entire life, of course. He’d been told that he was reckless, inconsiderate, a liability that caused more damages that anything else. It hadn’t affected him in the slightest though, not until the arguments had started (Zayn’s hatred of conflict was founded, based on years worth of frustrated meetings and screaming managers and angry tears, usually due to some action Louis had performed in the heat of the moment).

Harry raised an eyebrow at the same time as Mandy did, but they had different intents. Harry was genuinely interested in what Louis had desired to accomplish during those days whereas Mandy was something else entirely. It was almost as if she was daring Louis to say what he was about to, a gesture that would usually provoke a significant response from the twenty three year old.

He wished that he could scream. He wished that he could stand up from his seat and kiss Harry on the lips until he remembered nothing but the feel of Louis’ skin. He wished that he could scream and punch a wall and crash a tour bus, wished more than anything that he could work up the courage, the courage to be himself again.

Louis wished until his head hurt, until his eyes stung with the constant presence of frustrated tears. The accident had stirred everything inside of him yet quelled the internal fire, and he wasn’t sure when or if it would return.

Louis managed to smile at Harry after a few moments of silence, thinking of the right way to word it so that he wouldn’t hear what he was really yelling out.

“I wanted us all to become closer,” he began. What he meant: _I wanted you to come so much closer._

“We only had a week together.” _When I wanted more, I wanted so much more._

“Little did I know that we would have five years on the road with nobody but each other for company.” _I got what I wanted. I got you, and I got to curl up beside you in the top bunk_ _even though it was made for only one person, and I got to see you sleepy and I got to hear you sing every night._

“So I guess I got everything I wanted in the bungalow after all.” _Apart from skin-on-skin or even lips on lips; I got everything I wanted but nothing I really needed._

Harry grinned at him. “Sounds like you’ve had a good life, Louis,” he said.

What he meant: _I can’t remember._

*

“How did it feel?”

Louis looked up from his plate of uneaten pasta, his fork continuing to circle the plate without settling. All of the boys had come over for dinner bar Niall who was babysitting Theo with Barbara, and Louis would be lying if he said it wasn’t a little awkward. His mind was still buzzing from the hospital visit that day and the way that Harry kept smiling freely as he had when they first met; he had forgotten how enthusiastic about life he was. There was a bubble of guilt building up in his veins, moving as surely in his bloodstream as the oxygen did. Had he not have ‘corrupted’ Harry (yes, he had heard that wording from people who he didn’t care to speak of now) would everything have been different? Would Harry have been on that tour bus to begin with?

Zayn hadn’t spoken the entire time but was now choosing to break the silence with a question deeper than most he’d asked before. Niall and Liam shuffled uncomfortably in their seats, only half finished their food after two hours eating time, but Louis couldn’t for the life of him understand to what Zayn was referring. “What?” he said, the corner of his mouth twitching up in confusion.

The dark eyed boy returned his focus to the bowl of soup he was making slight progress with. He had a slightly sheepish expression and, when he continued his voice was lighter, airier in a way that only those struggling not to cry uttered. “To die,” he said.

Louis’ fork clanged down onto the table, rattling the bunch of wilting flowers in a vase in the centre. He had bought those flowers for Harry three weeks ago. They were supposed to be long life, just like his boy. “How should I know?” Louis asked, not caring that there was a snip to his tone.

“Haven’t you asked him?” Niall piped up, obviously trying to defer Louis’ scathing glance that was targeted in Zayn’s direction. If truth be told, Louis wasn’t sure why they were all still hanging out at this point. The tour had been filled with debates and disputes and even now Louis was hardly being the chivalrous host. Had Harry have died that day Louis would’ve had no qualms about the fact that this group of boys would never have spoken again. He was the glue that held them all together, even when he couldn’t remember any of them.

Liam sighed, slowly blinking. “How would he have asked him, Niall?” he said, and for once Louis felt his distaste towards the boy lessening slightly. “It isn’t really a topic of conversation that would come up.”

Niall let out a laugh at that. “Oh yes,” he said, smiling despite the tears hanging at the corners of his eyes. “Because Louis and Harry are famed for talking about normal things, right enough.” The Irish boy turned back to look at Louis. “You always used to talk about everything. What happened?”

“He forgot me.”

If it hadn’t been tense in the room before it certainly was now. Even Niall knew when to stop with Louis even though the older boy wasn’t exactly sure he wanted him to. It felt somewhat normal to be sitting talking about Harry. He could pretend that his boyfriend was just down at the pub with the scruffy hipsters he’d been hanging out with lately. He could just pretend that Harry would come back and plant a kiss on his lips and hold him tightly in a way that made him feel like he was floating on a cloud.

During the next hospital visit Louis got Mary to send Mandy the wrong times for his visit, allowing him to spend some alone time with Harry. Thankfully the receptionist was all too willing to help him with a smile on her face and her blonde hair falling out of an elaborate bun. “Of course Louis,” she said. “I’d be happy to. Is there anything in particular you’re going to tell him?”

“Not tell,” he said, leaning against the contours of the welcoming desk. “Ask.”

Mary’s mouth made an ‘o’ shape. “Well okay then,” she said with a laugh to her tone. She went back to typing on her computer and so Louis considered the conversation over. He  
turned away and walked towards the elevator.

Her voice cut through the quiet atmosphere of the lobby. “I was thinking, when he gets out of hospital, you could come with me and my sister to this wee Italian restaurant.” Louis considered her for a moment, weighing up the options. “It might help him,” Mary suggested. “Considering he sort of knows me.”

Louis forced a small smile. “That would be nice then,” he said. “Thank you.”

She grinned at him carelessly, reminding him so inherently of Harry that it hurt. “No problem. I hope you get the answer you want.”

“Me too,” Louis said, even though he wasn’t sure that he would.

*

**_Eight days after._ **

“What does dying feel like?” Harry repeated, scrunching up his eyebrows in thought. Louis nodded, wringing his hands together to rid them of the slight sweat that was appearing. It was warm in the hospital room given the time of year, but that wasn’t why he was perspiring. The sun shone in, only deterred by the blinds that hung over half of the windows. It was a perfect day, the kind of day in which they would’ve celebrated pre-accident. They would’ve packed up a picnic basket and went to a beach in LA and look out over the ocean as their security guards circled the area, keeping back screaming girls and telling them that Louis was spending some quality time with his girlfriend even though the opposite was true.

He pondered it for a few more moments before beginning slowly. Of course, he always spoke as if he was considering each syllable, each goddamn letter, and it infuriated Louis sometimes because he envied his self control. “Peaceful and calm,” He said finally. Louis felt himself deflate (that’s how Harry used to feel when he was with him). “I think I’d like to go back. Not immediately, of course,” The last bit was spoken hurriedly. “But it was nice. I’m not scared of it anymore I think.”

“You were scared before,” Louis said, slightly disbelieving. “What does a sixteen year old have to fear about death?”

“Obviously a lot,” Harry said, but it wasn’t condescending. “I mean, I died.”

“But you were twenty one then.”

“I still can’t believe that,” he muttered, shaking his head. “That’s like four years...”

“Five.”

“Five years I’ve forgotten.” And then, “At least I think I’ve forgotten them.”

Louis scrunched his nose up, trying to mask the grimace of pain. His head was throbbing all the time now, but it got particularly bad when he was in Harry’s presence. He missed being comfortable, he missed the silence that they shared in the comfort of their own beds. He missed seeing the purple of Harry’s veins against the colour of their bedroom wall and hearing the heartbeat that was as steady as his actions. “What do you mean by that?”

“I dunno,” Harry said, almost immediately. “I keep having weird dreams, but I don’t really know if they happened or not, you know?”

“Can you remember them?” Louis asked eagerly. Harry’s eyes widened slightly. He shook his head.

“Only for a few moments afterwards,” he explained. A miniscule groan left Louis’ lips before an idea struck him.

“Maybe you could keep a dream journal,” He suggested. Harry looked interested, pushing back the covers and moving over to the side of the bed, dangling his legs over the side. An instinct inside of Louis told him to put his hands on the thighs that were visible in the short hospital gown, but his head prevented him. It felt like the X Factor all over again; he could touch but never truly touch, see but never really see, listen but never actually listen. “You used to,” he inhaled sharply. “Before the...”

“Accident?” Harry offered, looking at Louis from underneath his hair. It had fallen back into his face. He did look seventeen again. Louis nodded, the blue of his eyes being masked  
by the lake rising.

To say he was surprised would be an understatement. Louis couldn’t think of a word other than awestruck to describe how he felt in that moment. Harry reached out, resting his knuckles against the hotness of Louis’ cheeks. His thumb brushed the tear that had dropped without his knowledge, his movements so delicate and precise. He swore his heart stopped, or maybe it was in his mouth as he looked into the green of the other boy’s irises. “Harry...”

“Why do you always cry when you’re around me?” Harry asked. He wasn’t whining, but there was a definite sadness to it. “What have I done?”

Louis laughed slightly, pretending not to notice the hand that Harry kept cupped around his face, his long fingers drifting over the feathers of Louis’ hair. “Nothing, Harry,” he said. “Nothing at all.”

“Were we really close?”

This time Louis had to turn away from him. He stood up abruptly from the chair, Harry’s hand falling from his cheek and turned towards the door so that the other boy couldn’t  
see the rawness of his emotions.

“Obviously not close enough,” he responded.

The door closed with a thump.

*

When he returned to an empty, darkened apartment Louis busied himself with repacking Harry’s hospital discharge bag. The first time around he hadn’t been thinking (he still wasn’t, really) and had just shoved in a mismatch of clothes that used to fit him but didn’t anymore, like the Ramones shirt or a denim jacket that Louis had bought him for Christmas and then taken as his own. He loved that jacket with the cream fur trim, loved that it still smelt like Harry even after so many years. It was warm and comforting in the way that his arms used to feel. Louis grasped onto this piece of clothing, wearing it for as long as he could before retiring to bed.

Eleanor had come over to his house that evening at around eight o’clock in place of Anne, who declared that she would visit the next day. Obviously the paparazzi was called to take photographs of Louis greeting his ‘girlfriend’ at the front door with a hesitant kiss on the cheek and a hand in the middle of her back, but once they were inside she pulled him into an honest-to-God-I’m-sorry-about-what-happened hug. It felt like suffocation to be embraced by the girl that was hired to hide the love that no longer existed, but Louis had admittedly gotten closer to her over time, and Harry had never demonstrated anything less than like towards her. He tried to appreciate her comfort, he really did.  
“How are you doing, Lou?” she asked with her brown eyes squinted in genuine worry for her friend. Her slender fingers were gripping tightly onto the upper of Louis’ arms, but he couldn’t bring himself to look up. “Fine,” he mumbled. Eleanor wrapped her arms around him again and spoke into his ear.

“He loved you, you know,” she mumbled. A tear fell out onto her expensive leather jacket, leaving a little path where it moved. “He loved you so much Louis. He can’t have forgotten it.”

“He has though,” Louis mumbled.

Eleanor didn’t say anything else. She looked around the apartment, which was somewhat smaller than she expected it to be. She’d told Louis on multiple occasions how much she enjoyed coming here where it smelt pleasantly of aftershave and burnt toast. Two pairs of shoes were lined up against the wall in the hall, one significantly smaller than the other. Louis could feel her smiling slightly over his shoulder, undoubtedly at the pictures hanging up on the wall. They spelled out years worth of memories, some more faded than others. Harry and Louis were together in every single one of them, usually staring into each other’s eyes (Louis reminded himself to take said photographs down before bringing the boy home, something that he shouldn’t have to do).

She pulled away, taking off her shoes, breathing a sigh of relief as she rubbed her heels. “Those heels were killing me,” Eleanor announced. Louis made his way into the kitchen, the sound of a bottle opener popping a beer lid echoing through the hall. “I wouldn’t know. Harry was the one who wore them,” he joked, his voice only breaking near the end once he remembered.

They stood there for a couple of minutes, looking at each other more intently than they had before. Louis scrutinised the freckles on her exposed shoulders (yes, he had been right before) and took in the precise hook of her nose, thinking about how, if this whole horrid situation was just a dream and he met Eleanor through a mutual friend rather than a manager, perhaps they could be misconstrued as siblings. Maybe they could’ve been as close as them.

“You should probably get some sleep,” she said, moving past him eventually. The majority of the apartment was open plan, so he could still retain eye contact with her as she bustled around the kitchen making him a cup of tea. “You look exhausted.”

“I won’t be able to,” he said. He leant his elbows on the counter opposite Eleanor, burying his face in his hands. “Not without him.”

She let out a long exhale that seemed to deflate her entire body. “You have to stay healthy, Louis,” she said, her voice muted slightly by the kettle whistling in the background. “Have you tried talking to Stan?”

“What use would that do me?” Louis asked. He’d stayed relatively close to his previous best friend, but fame and fortune as well as his newly founded relationship had prevented them from acting in the same way as they had before. Louis had matured over the past couple of years, faster than most twenty year old men would have to. He was thinking of mortgages and engagement rings rather than where to find the cheapest beer or the best bar to watch the football in, and whilst he appreciated that, sometimes he wondered what it would be like if his permanent residence had remained in Doncaster. “He wouldn’t understand. He didn’t really know him.”

“Nobody did apart from you,” Eleanor said, slightly fondly. She poured out the tea into the only clean cups she could find, tall glasses that had came with the house, and passed one over to Louis. They sat at the breakfast bar opposite each other, focusing only on the sounds of their sips and the taste of the warm liquid on their tongues. “What about Lou and Tom?”

“Everyone seems to expect me to want to talk to people,” Louis said, only faintly frustrated. It was pathetic to only be able to reveal a snippet of his emotions to the girl who had seen the brunt of them before, but for some reason (Harry) he couldn’t bear to lose it all. “I just want to be left alone, you know?”

Whilst many people would’ve been offended by that, the good thing about Eleanor’s continuous presence in Louis’ life during even the toughest moments against her will meant that she was perfectly capable of dealing with him, of knowing what he meant even when he didn’t. “Do you want to just watch a movie tonight?” she asked, finishing off the rest of her tea. Louis’ cup was still over half full, even the drink he loved making him sick to his stomach. He nodded sheepishly, pushing the cup away from him.

Eleanor didn’t say a word as she poured out the tea into the sink and filled a bowl with popcorn they both knew Louis wouldn’t touch. He watched as she moved around the kitchen, familiar in most of her surroundings, only floundering on the cupboards in which the contents had changed in the past couple of months. “Why don’t you go and choose one then?” she asked, a kind smile on her features. She was being so nice, so caring, that Louis couldn’t take it anymore.

He burst into tears.

It was new levels of pitiful, even for Louis and Eleanor. They didn’t even watch the movie that he had picked, Valentine’s Day. They just spent the night with Louis in Eleanor’s arms as she mumbled memories into the feathers of his hair, reminding him distinctly of his sisters, which just made him miss them more. Of course, every single goddamn time he thought of the word ‘miss’ it turned into thoughts of Harry, and, really, everything else did as well.

“I don’t know what to say,” Eleanor muttered finally once Louis had all run out of tears and was just rocking backwards and forwards on the sofa in her arms.

“It’s okay,” he snuffled. “Neither do I.”

*

**_Nine days later._ **

Anne was sitting in the hospital ward when Louis returned the next day. His eyes were still stinging and his face was red where the tears had fallen, but he was assured in the fact that he wouldn’t need to cry for a long time now after the release. Eleanor had left in the early hours of the morning, Max coming to pick her up in what sounded like the pouring rain, and she had made sure to text Louis the second she got home to remind him that she was, in her words, “at your beck and call, whenever you need”.

Harry’s mother greeted him with a tight hug and a watered smile, and whilst it was a selfish thing to consider Louis felt that she had the better end of this whole deal; Harry at least remembered her. Forgetting one or two events, such as her wedding to Robin and the multiple birthdays they had celebrated over the past five years, wasn’t as big of a deal as forgetting her existence completely as he had Louis. So yes, he could say that he was envious of the woman who had carried Harry for nine months and raised him to be the man that he was. However, despite his conflicting feelings towards her, he still grasped onto her as tightly as he would’ve his own mother.

“I’m so glad you’re still here,” Anne mumbled, which was just another thing that irritated Louis. She was acting as if it was a surprise that he was still standing here, that he hadn’t fled at the first sight of Harry’s memory loss. Louis forced a smile to appear on his face and shrugged. “Been here through worse,” he said flippantly. “Not leaving now.”

Anne grinned at him and kissed his cheek. Harry looked very like her; he shared both her beauty and the radiance that shone from her every smile and glance. She looked at people with the same intensity and spoke with the same kindness, and she was so like the Old Harry that Louis almost called after her when she bid a goodbye to her son and left on the pretences of giving them some space.

“Louis,” Harry called, somewhat happily, his face breaking into a grin. Louis forced a grim smile onto his own features and sat down on the seat beside the bed, feeling the shortness of breath he always did around a happy Harry. “You never told me how we met.”

Louis scrunched his eyebrows together. “Yeah I did,” he said. “We all got put in a group on the X Factor.”

“I don’t mean that,” the other boy insisted. “I mean, I know that’s what you said. But I think we knew each other before that. Didn’t we?”

He breathed out slowly, the oxygen leaving his lungs, leaving him as deflated on the inside as he probably appeared on the outer. “Do you really want to know?” he asked. Harry nodded enthusiastically, placing his head in his hands as he moved over beside Louis.

“Okay,” Louis said hesitantly. “We met in a bathroom.”

“A bathroom?” Harry said with a laugh.

“Well...” No. That was the official meeting. That was the ‘oops’ and ‘hi’. No ifs, ands or buts about it. “Yeah, we did.”

There wasn’t any elaboration, because if there had’ve been Louis’ memories would’ve burst out in a fatal explosion.

*

_The music was pumping around behind him, playing all of his favourite songs, but Louis couldn’t hear a damn word. All of the meagre focus he possessed was on the pure perfection settled only a few rows in front, coming into his line of vision every time the person behind the boy swayed to the right._

_He had curly hair, probably brown although it was hard to tell amongst the flashing lights, and he was smiling with a deep dimple appearing in the creases of his cheeks. He wasn’t really Louis’ type; easy to get and even easier to imagine screwing. He was a kind of innocent that Louis found himself wanting to protect, a kind of looming goodness that would only grow as he got older. Of course, he was with Hannah at the time so he never would’ve really done anything, but it didn’t stop him from trying to meet the boy. After all, what made this one so different that he couldn’t be ‘just friends’?_

_The night of the Script concert was filled with missed opportunities and close calls. There were several moments in which Louis’ breath had caught in his chest and he had decided that this was when he was going to grab life by the metaphorical balls and just work up the courage to say hi, and then there were many more moments in which the boy passed by, just outside of his grasp. He was trying to be casual, because that’s what his mother had recommended. “If you want a girl to like you,” Johannah had confided,” You need to play it cool.” He assumed that the same advice was applicable to boys, not that he was attracted to this one in the slightest._

_He’d read all the stupid fairytales with his sisters for their bedtime stories, and he’d watched those idiotic princess movies and romantic comedies. He knew that life didn’t work the way that Hollywood would like to portray, but at that stage he was still young and barely driving, still trying to work out what the hell he was to do with his life. He was a softie at heart, as Lottie had cooed multiple times over the years, and he wasn’t ashamed to admit it when he was in a relationship. All other times, it was on a strictly need to know basis, hidden behind deflection and thick sarcasm._

_Perhaps the heavily female perspective that had been drummed into him almost exclusively throughout his life had a bearing on what he considered poignant, but when the boy met his eyes over a crowded room (not that he could be exactly sure he was looking at him; Harry would tell him later on it was obvious that he was) it felt a little bit like a miracle. He opened his mouth to scream his own name and ask for his, but Hannah had returned and was kissing his mouth with lips that tasted feminine and too much like cheap booze, causing the boy to return his attention to the friends beside him._

_Louis lost that boy once, but he’d be damned if he was letting it happen again._

_At the X Factor, it seemed too much like fate to be peed on by the same beautiful, curly haired boy that he had thought on occasion about over the past couple of years. It was too smooth for Louis to ask for a photograph because he knew the boy would be famous, too fantastically entwined that they would be put into the same group mere days later. When they began talking about moving in together far earlier on than was normal, Louis thought that maybe, just maybe, whatever deity existed had placed them both on this earth at the same time purely to make Louis forget how to breathe when they were in the same vicinity. He’d only known the boy five days before he considered that he might just love him._

_Harry was amazing, and despite the fact that Louis frequently forgot the date back in Doncaster, he remembered each and every day of the week with this boy. He remembered that Monday in September when Harry came into the studio with a windswept hairstyle and a gravy chip in his hand. He remembered the Tuesday in July when they sat against the wall of the studio and firmly refused to sing simply because it was too warm. He remembered particular interviews simply because they provided him with the opportunity to merely touch this masterpiece, to leave the imprints of his unworthy fingerprints upon the purity that was Harry Edward Styles. Concerts stuck in his memory for the way that Harry would look at him from the corner of his eye as he sang Happily and Strong and Little Things and all these songs that were reserved solely for each other._

_Everything and nothing made sense after that, but whenever Louis felt himself becoming lost he would look upon that photograph from the first day (which was now printed out and put pride of place on their bedside cabinet) or ponder the tattoos that were curling their way onto Harry’s skin and know that they were meant for him. It was an amazing thing. They didn’t need a ring, didn’t need vows (although they would ultimately come). They just needed each other, HarryandLouis, and that was enough for everyone else as well._

_Harry deserved nothing less than commitment; deserved nothing less than everything and more of Louis. That was why he dedicated himself solely to cultivating their deeply profound relationship. After all, every great love story begins with a passionate friendship and ends with a painful heartbreak._

_Maybe they could leave out that last bit._

*

“You and Nick were out then at some fancy ass art show,” _And you were undoubtedly art with a background of slightly less impressive art_. “But that was the night Niall got completely wasted, I mean like completely fucking wasted, and it was absolutely hilarious because when you came back we had to explain how he got his foot stuck in our apartment wall.”

In truth, there had been a relatively large argument between the band once Harry had departed with the radio DJ that night. For a reason that they had never really discussed, they didn’t like confronting Harry. Liam had mentioned something along the lines of the fact he was afraid of him, but Louis didn’t believe that for a second.

It was the middle of December, nearing Christmas, which was famed for being the time of the shitty public relations people and their ludicrous publicity stunts. Liam was pissed off at Louis for refusing to go along with it. Louis was pissed off at Liam for wanting him to go down without as much as a fight. Zayn was sitting in the background mumbling that it was Louis and Harry’s life and for Liam to let them get on with it. Niall was just screaming at the top of his lungs, cursing about how if this kept up One Direction would be over before their five year anniversary (Niall was attached to the group in a more visible way; he showed love for the rest of the boys at any moment of the day. Perhaps this was why he was taking their disputes particularly hard).

Anyways, Niall had ended up kicking the wall in frustration because nobody was paying attention to him and his foot had gone straight through the cheap plaster. Harry and Louis hadn’t moved into their new apartment by that stage and so they were still in the little crappy flat in the outskirts of London. The sale had been finalised already, so Louis didn’t honestly care about the damages. Whilst the other boys just looked at the hole and Niall began trying to pull his leg out with wide eyes Louis just laughed and laughed and laughed until the rest joined in. It was exactly what they had needed; an outlet to allow them to vent their frustrations that would never result in a broken nose.

Liam had suggested, once their ribs had stopped aching, that they simply lie to Harry and say they were messing around to explain away the large hole. Niall, who was still stuck and being prised out carefully by a meticulous Zayn, was half laughing and half crying, his blue eyes watery and red. Louis had firmly refused to keep anything from Harry, and so when Nick dropped the younger boy off at the door with a too firm hand on his waist and a stupid grin on his face a reluctant Liam explained to him the events of the day whilst Louis glared at Grimshaw. That man was an asshole, and he would always think that, despite what Harry told him to the contrary.

“Nick?” Harry said, scrunching his forehead at the foreign name. Louis nodded, pursing his lips somewhat. A person who didn’t love Harry (if such a human existed) might’ve chosen to give into their selfish impulses and keep Nick’s existence to himself, but Louis prided himself on being better than that. Besides, the stupid man would probably show up at some stage in the near future, and he wanted Harry to be prepared to know that he wasn’t Nick’s.

“Yeah,” Louis said. “Nick Grimshaw. You were friends...”

“Nick Grimshaw?” Harry repeated, his voice rising slightly. “That radio DJ?”

Now it was Louis’ turn to sound confused. Harry was, for the first time, sounding completely sure of himself. “Harry,” he muttered. Harry looked at him intently, his green irises slightly sparkling. “How do you know that?”

His voice had gotten significantly lower and more dangerous with the question, but Harry didn’t seem to notice. “I was best friends with him, wasn’t I?” he asked, smiling slightly with half of his mouth.

“Just friends,” Louis exclaimed. He felt sick, he felt as if the world was settling down heavily upon his chest, as if he was sitting on a bed of nails. “Nothing but friends.”

Harry mumbled, “Of course,” but he looked unconvinced as he relaxed against the headboard of the hospital bed.

“Just friends,” Louis repeated. Harry scrutinised him for a minute more before turning his gaze to the window.

They didn’t talk much more after that and Harry never made eye contact with him for the rest of the time, so Louis decided after five minutes to leave. He had better things to do than watch whilst Harry forgot him in favour of Grimmy.

_*_

_Harry was the type to crave human interaction every second of his life. Perhaps that was why, despite his unending talent and endearing charisma, he was better in a group than out of it._

_When none of the four boys were available he would walk backstage and sit with the bodyguards, never speaking, just stay there and listen to them talk. He enjoyed that; enjoyed the buzz of conversation and people-watching and looking into their eyes and trying to work out what motivated them. He was the opposite of Louis in this respect also, who whilst being described as a ‘chatty person’ by the majority of his previous teachers craved the silence of time spent alone. The younger boy had said on multiple times that they were just as good as each other, perfect in differing ways, with a soppy smile on his face. “Two halves of the same soul, Harry,” Louis had replied without fail on each occasion, and over time he became increasingly convinced that this was what they were._

_Harry had started hanging out with Nick relatively early on in their entertainment career. He had met him at a bar and immediately began talking as he did every night, eventually calling over Louis to meet the man as well. Louis and Nick had gotten off on a good foot, having the same sense of humour and the same bright-eyed smile, but after a while nothing but venomous jealousy came over Louis when he was in the same vicinity as the older man. Nick had made clear on many occasions that he was completely gone for Harry, as any man in his right mind would be, and refused to stop hanging out with him on the grounds that he wouldn’t do anything inappropriate. This worked well initially until one particularly drunken Friday night when rain was pouring down over London._

_The weather forecast had said it would be good, and so Louis was wearing a short sleeved Vans shirt with rolled up trousers. Unfortunately it had been wrong as usual, and so he had returned home from his day out playing football in a muddy little field with Niall with sticky arms from the rain and a soaking Tesco bag filled with soggy biscuits. When he arrived home, his shoes squelching along Harry’s beige carpet, he checked the answering machine (Harry was enjoying his night out, he missed Louis and couldn’t wait to get home and kiss him whilst drifting into sleep). He smiled at the sound of Harry’s voice, feeling the fondness seep through his veins, and then continued to the bedroom to get changed. He considered chilling around the flat in only his boxers, but without Harry to warm him on a relatively cold night he decided upon a pair of long pyjama bottoms and a too large sweatshirt._

_He made himself a cup of tea and settled in to watch Breaking Bad, his hair lying limp over his forehead. He knew that there had been nights in which he had been out and Harry had sat alone, but he couldn’t stop himself from missing the way that the younger boy’s long fingers drifted distractedly over his thigh during a movie. It wasn’t motivated; not tickling or inherently sexual, just a little reminder that Louis was there right beside him, a fact that comforted Harry during the dark of night. They were just the right mix of neediness and independence, so perfectly entwined in their opposites that it was unbelievable at times._

_Midnight came and went, and almost exactly half an hour past dawn there was a knocking at the front door of the apartment. It lifted Louis from the tottering edge of slumber and delivered him to the door with a wide grin on his face and a tea stain down the front of Harry’s jumper. “Harry,” He began as the door opened. He was cut off upon the sight._  
 _His eyes rested upon a dishevelled and decidedly drunken Harry, his hair windswept and sticking to his forehead, the knees of his jeans ripped in a way that they weren’t when he left, his shirt on back to front. Nick appeared from behind him still holding a bottle of Jack Daniels in one hand, the fingers of the other looped around Harry’s belt. Louis noticed with a bad taste in his mouth that the zip of Harry’s trousers was undone. Both of their mouths opened to explain, but before they had the chance Louis’ fist made contact with Nick’s face._

_“Don’t you ever,” Louis spat, dragging Harry behind him, who stumbled only slightly into the wall. “Ever come near him again, you understand?”_

_“What the actual fuck Louis?” Nick had said, grasping onto his bloody nose. There was an angry looking bruise appearing below his eye already, a deep purple that made Louis feel decidedly nauseous. “I have to go to work in the morning!”_

_“You’ll have a face for radio then,” Louis retorted. “Not that you haven’t already.”_

_He wanted Nick to batter him. He wanted to feel a fist punch repeatedly into his face, perhaps even his stomach, simply to erase the guilt that was building up like a slow, foreboding tsunami. Instead, the older man showed a restraint foreign to Louis, looking at him with only sympathy._

_“You’ll never deserve him Louis,” He had said, his words hurting more than his punch ever could. “You know that. That’s why you’re so goddamn protective.”_

_“He loves me,” Louis had responded, but his voice wavered on the end. It wasn’t a fact; Harry had repeated it often enough, but then again he told fans he loved them as well. Were his affections so meaningless that they could be bestowed upon someone he had only just met? “He loves me, and that’s the difference between me and you.”_

_Nick had sighed at that, a deep exhale that shuddered through his entire beaten up body. “You and me are exactly the same, Louis,” He said. “The only thing is I know that. You’re still stuck in denial.”_

_He didn’t say anything else after that, just turned away and walked towards the end of the corridor, towards the elevator with blood stained hands. Louis had it in his mind to run after him, create a scene that he could twist later on when Nick was sober, pretend like it was Grimshaw who had started it and Louis who had ended it. Instead, it was the radio man who got the last words._

_“Just because he loved you when he was sixteen doesn’t mean he’ll love you forever.”_

_The truth of his statement rung through Louis’ thoughts whilst he made a comatose Harry a cup of tea and wriggled him out of his skinny jeans. He ran his hands along his thighs. He kissed him upon the lips and tasted the lingering vodka._

_“I kissed him,” Harry said as he settled into their double bed. Louis stopped getting changed, his fingers frozen on the ends of his fraying jumper. “Or he kissed me, I’m not exactly sure. But I liked it.” He was slurred in his speech but not drunk enough for this, never drunk enough for this. “It was good. I’m sorry, Lou.”_

_There was a world crashing down around him. It wasn’t Earth; it was something much greater than that. It was as if he was falling into a deep black hole whilst being burned alive at the same time by the everlasting heat of the sun. And then, everything was dark and meaningless, because the last remaining ray of light had disappeared into the obscurity._  
 _Louis swallowed thickly, his body screaming for him not to utter the words that he would inevitably spew out of his vile, chapped lips._

_“We’re over.”_

_*_

Harry had whimpered pathetically into his sweatshirt after that but Louis, famed for his stubbornness, had remained in his resolve, convinced of the fact that had Harry loved him with all of his mind and soul he wouldn’t have enjoyed the taste of Nick’s tongue. They had several properties by that stage, some big houses in Hampstead and others overlooking the River Thames, and so Louis promptly chucked Harry out of their home, declaring that because he was the “absolute asshole who decided to cheat on his boyfriend with some wrinkly fuck-face just because he’d had a few shots of vodka” he deserved to be the one uprooted. Strangely, despite begging Louis several times before he left with plump lips slightly parted and tears in his red eyes not to do this, he loved him and he was sorry and he didn’t really remember what he’d said last night, Harry left without much fuss.

Louis didn’t know what he was expecting from a breakup. Most of the relationships he had gone through in his life had ended in much the same way. Perhaps that was the issue; HarryandLouis was so unique, so special and different and spectacular that it shouldn’t have to end with sheepish goodbyes and pissed-off expressions. It wasn’t that he wanted to argue with Harry, he didn’t. He just wanted something to be mad at him about except for an event which transpired that he barely remembered (this whole thing had nothing to do with the fact that Harry had been talking about wedding rings and adoption and Louis was decidedly terrified. Nothing at all).

A large suitcase usually designated solely for touring was sitting out in the corridor of their apartment building. Harry’s hand was resting upon the extended handle, his back slightly hunched and his feet pointed inwards as if begging the floor to swallow him up. He was so confident yet so unobvious in his insecurities that Louis almost grabbed him into a hug right there and then. He wished he had instead of remaining in the door frame of the apartment, looking at the boy in which his everything resided including the hurt that had battered into him over the past twelve hours. Harry had glanced up one last time, only a metre away but feeling like so much further, and said, as clearly as glass, “I love you, Louis.”

“Don’t say that,” Louis sneered when he really meant ‘Say it over and over again until you forget the sound of his voice’. “Don’t you dare say that, Harry.”

“But I do,” Harry protested, sounding significantly like a whiny ten year old demanding a toy. “I love you more than anything. Why are you doing this?”

“Because I love you too and I can’t fucking stand it!”

The door shut in Harry’s face, much like how the hospital doors slammed behind him as he walked out with a smile on his face.

He was decidedly exhausted, but still cheerful as only a sixteen year old can be, grabbing onto his duffle bag and leaning lightly against Louis’ side. They were leaving out the back of the hospital so there were only a few people to bask in his radiance, a girl in a wheelchair being among their ranks. She greeted him with a wide eyed, bashful expression and begged both of them for a photograph. After smiling in the way he had been trained, Louis stood back to sign a crumpled up napkin whilst Harry stayed on the same level as the young girl named Clarissa.

“I’ve wanted to meet you for a long time,” the fourteen year-old said clearly, her green eyes decidedly watery. She had Harry’s hand clasped in her own skinny fingers, so desperately that Louis could tell Harry was the air she breathed. It was a different kind of love than Louis had for him; Clarissa would never know what kind of cereal Harry ate in the morning or what he sang in the shower unless he said so in an interview, but it was love nonetheless, and it was exactly what the boy needed.

Harry smiled at her with dimples forming in his cheeks. “I’ve enjoyed meeting you too,” he said, obviously not understanding the meaning behind her words. She was a fan, not an old family friend (or perhaps that was what she could be considered) and Louis couldn’t think of a way to tell Harry this that wouldn’t broadcast his... condition.

A stony faced nurse appeared mere moments after Harry’s words and grabbed onto the handles of Clarissa’s wheelchair. “Time to say goodbye,” she said harshly. Louis didn’t think that this was fair; it was obvious from Clarissa’s awestruck expression that this was everything she’d ever wanted and never dared to dream of combined into one short meeting. However, the young girl must’ve been used to being regarded in this way, because she didn’t flinch at the tone. She looked up at Harry one final time and drifted her hand along his face. In a way that Louis never could, Harry stayed still and allowed her to take in his features, kept his eyes firmly focused on her’s.

Finally, she mumbled, “Thank you” and disappeared into a waiting ambulance, the nurse mumbling under her breath about wasted time. The sirens rung out through the air as the boys’ limo pulled up. Paul was sitting in the backseat and jumped out suddenly to help Harry in.

Once they were settled on the slightly heated leather seats of the vehicle and Louis had assured himself that Harry’s belt was firmly wrapped around his waist he turned to the boy. “We don’t... We didn’t know Clarissa.”

“I know,” Harry said lightly, chewing at the corner of his thumbnail. The hospital disappeared from view. Paul rolled up the windows to prevent photographers’ cameras from catching sight of them. “She just seemed to really like me.”

“Everyone likes you, Harry,” Louis said, trying not to make it sound as if he was jealous. He wasn’t, not anymore; he had learnt over the years of loving this boy to accept the fact that others did as well. It was just that he had always battled with being a ‘take me or leave me’ sort of character, more noted for being left than taken. “But she was just a fan.”

“Doesn’t stop her from liking me,” He responded. “Just because someone doesn’t know you can’t mean they don’t love you.”

He made a good point for a sixteen year old, and so Louis just nodded with pursed lips before turning his attention back to the road in front of them.

*

**_Ten days after._ **

He had learnt from The Vow, which they had ironically watched on multiple occasions before this whole horrid affair, not to throw a welcoming party for his amnesic boyfriend upon the return to their apartment. However, perhaps it would’ve been easier for Harry to be mad at him rather than awkwardly stunting around the foreign apartment, opening all of the wrong cupboards before finally finding the one which held the glasses. At least screaming at each other was relatively common in their household with passion burning as hot as anger.

“I like what you’ve done with the place,” Harry muttered absentmindedly, his fingers trailing along the granite worktops. The doctor had told Louis before they left the hospital in a hushed voice just to go back to what he described as Louis’ ‘normal routine’, even though the majority of the average day had been spent cuddled up beside Harry, kissing Harry or sleeping with Harry (every waking hour had held thoughts of Harry, and that was a large portion of the reason he was so happy with his life). It was just that it was nothing short of difficult to go back to being the way that he was considering this. The numb feeling that had infiltrated his brain over the past few days did little to help matters either.

He was still standing in the same place as he had been for the past ten minutes, watching Harry bumble around making a cup of tea in a different way than usual. He was putting the tea in first and the milk in second, as he had done when they had first met before he changed to a ‘miffy’. It was the little things he forgot that killed Louis, even more than him not remembering the bathroom. It made him wonder whether anything he had come to love about this boy had vanished when the scar on his forehead appeared.

“You should,” Louis said, taking in the way Harry moved in the Henley. The fact that he was stumbling around as awkwardly as he had five years before whilst still possessing his hulking frame was bizarre if nothing else, perhaps even could be considered funny. “You picked it.”

Little wrinkles appeared on Harry’s forehead. His nose scrunched in confusion. “I did?” he said. Louis nodded.

“You spent a good portion of 2013 complaining that you weren’t sure of them,” Louis babbled, thinking that if even a word of his mumblings got through the wall of fogginess it would be worth seeming idiotic. “But then 2014 came around and you loved the counters. You...” You started loving them after we fucked up against the stone. “You... You really liked them.”

Harry made an, ‘Aha’ nose and then continued moving around, wincing when the unfamiliar kettle burnt him. “Fuck,” He muttered under his breath, putting his finger in his mouth. Louis resisted the urge to run over and kiss where blisters were forming, instead providing medical advice from over the counter.

“Run it under cold water,” he offered as Harry ran towards the sink haphazardly. He looked so uncomfortable, even more so than he had when they first moved in, and Louis was considering him with critical worry burning in the back of his mind. Maybe it was only because of the injury, but it could’ve been because of something else as well, something that kept Louis up at night. “Keep it under until you can’t feel your finger.”

“Okay,” Harry snapped, somewhat irritated in his pain. “I know all of this. You’ve told me before.”

Louis wasn’t really listening to him, preferring to focus his attentions on the way that Harry’s long forefinger was throbbing. “Is it really bad?” he asked, getting down from the bar stool and walking around the island to rightbeside Harry. Their torsos were touching now, every inch of skin burning with the contact, Louis’ breath hitching in his throat.  
Harry had always been one for close physical presence, even early on in a relationship, so he didn’t move away from Louis who was, in all fairness, a stranger. A hopelessly unintended beauty of a stranger, but nonetheless a stranger.

“Nah,” he said, feeling the coolness seeping into his veins from the tap-water. “It’s getting better already, see?”

The other boy looked on disbelievingly, but didn’t say another word. He looked distinctly like he was remembering something long since forgotten, something particularly painful. Harry continued on with the icy water, hoping desperately that it was nothing to do with him even though he knew that it was.

*

_They had told the other boys they had broken up, but refused to tell anybody else. To say to management that the relationship had been terminated would be like telling all of the snobby managers and smug publicists that they had been right; their love was too quick and too deep to last. Thus, Harry and Louis came to the agreement that to everybody else they were still together and really, by every definition there was, they were._

_After the first week Harry moved back into the apartment, claiming that he had forgotten one of his favourite CD’s. That had ended up in making out on the living room sofa whilst Harry clasped onto the disc in one hand and Louis’ hair in the other._

_In fairness, there was a lot of sex during that period, and it meant a lot of different things at a lot of different times. There was “holy shit I love you” sex and there was “stop hanging out with Nick” sex and there was “you’re so hot when you’re jealous” sex. There was “don’t let me go” and “we should’ve never broken up”, and finally it got to the point where it was angry sex and happy sex and crying sex all at once. Eventually it reached “I love you so much it’s hurting,” and that was, in Louis’ opinion, the best kind._  
 _“This is just a friend thing, right?” he had repeated every time they sat on opposite ends of the bed dressed in only the meagre scrapings of material they called underwear. “It doesn’t mean anything.” And on every occasion, without fail, Harry had nodded, and each time they went out drinking with the other boys they’d ended up together naked in the dirty bathrooms of each dive-like establishment they could find. It was meant to be discreet, a little secret just between Harry and Lou, just like everything about them was supposed to be unknown to anyone else. Unfortunately, the other boys knew when it happened because they could cut the tension in the room with a knife afterwards._  
 _After approximately four weeks of this they sat in their own bathroom with decidedly sore muscles and bleeding lips, looking at each other with the kind of love that only those who didn’t belong to each other could. Louis was sitting upon the toilet with his head in his hands, and Harry was on the floor, peering up at him underneath his mess of hair in a way that made his insides churn._

_“We were meant to be broken up,” Louis said. Harry murmured in agreement, but somehow it sound didn’t seem sincere. “What are we gonna do?”_

_It was one of those simple questions that carried such unbearable weight. Harry could either respond with a simple shrug and a long, slow closing of his eyes, or he could burst out crying and fall into Louis’ lap. Louis knew exactly which outcome he desired, and when Harry did the opposite he was almost the one sobbing._

_“I don’t know,” Harry said. “I don’t know anything other than I love you. So I’m going to go with that.”_

_The acoustics in the bathroom were always better than anywhere else in the house. Perhaps it was the pipes in the walls or the tiles that decorated the floor, but Harry’s voice echoed through his mind more than it usually did. “Same here,” He said finally, smiling down tentatively at the boy he was so far gone for, the boy that he loved so desperately._

_They slept together that night, but it was unique from the entire break up sex collection they had created. It was almost a recreation of the first, the time in which Louis pressed his fingers against skin that had been hidden before. He had always imagined that when he touched someone they’d be somewhat less pure. Perhaps that said more about his fingers than it did about them, but Harry was different. He was pure white light that came around in a glimmer every once a century. He was the sun at the end of an endless winter. He was beautiful._

_His thighs were particularly sensitive. Louis had discovered this relatively early on when they used to dry hump in the bunks of the tour bus, but he’d never had the opportunity to act upon this until that first time. He couldn’t for the life of him remember the date on which it occurred, not that it mattered. The only thing that did was that Harry was the person clouding his thoughts, taking up all of his emotions, filling every inch of his body with irrepressible love._

_Louis was stripped down to his underwear but Harry was barer; naked and sprawled out on the bed with a redness tingeing his cheeks. He was panicking, Louis knew he was, because he’d never been with a boy and he believed all of the lies porn had given him during his impressionable teenage years. Hell, he still was a teenager. Maybe that was what made this so innocent, so much like perfection, or maybe it was just because he was Harry that did that._

_He moved up the bed in between Harry’s thighs, the endless parade of his legs on either side. He was smiling down at Louis with an expression that struck of exhilarated terror, and Louis could only force himself to look away when he reminded himself of what he was to do. His lips traced the insides of Harry’s thighs, his teeth lightly nibbling along the sensitive skin. Harry was quivering above him already, his body shuddering with the exhale of nervous breaths, the anticipation heavy in the air._

_Louis ran his fingers over the reddened skin, making Harry buck upwards from the mattress slightly and then slump backwards with a hand on the contours of his hips. “It’s okay Harry,” Louis muttered, moving upwards to capture the boy’s shaking lips.”I’ve got you. I just want to show you how beautiful you are, okay?”_

_Harry nodded, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards. “Are you going to take those off then?”he asked, his fingers tracing the outline in Louis’ boxers. Even though his voice was small and self conscious, Louis found it more enticing than even the most confident of people, beckoning him in a way that was foreign. He was to be the only one to see Harry like this, the only one who could drive him crazy. He doubted Caroline could’ve loved him as much as he did, doubted she would’ve given all of herself so easily to a boy she had just met. He was willing to take the chance for this perfect human being lying in front of him, anxiously waiting._

_A pair of Armani boxers dropped to the floor, and after one final kiss their silhouettes moved over each other’s, more expertly now than the first time but still tingling in the night before finally merging into one._

_*_

“We had a lot of DVDs, didn’t we?” Harry pondered as his fingers worked the way along the cases. Rain was pounding against the windows of the apartment, thunder crashing in the air. Louis remembered the way in which, at home, his mother’s wooden frames would quake in distress along with the wind. He recalled vividly, if not fondly, the way in which he would crawl in beside his sisters during the night to provide emotional support and receive it himself. He wasn’t afraid of spiders (although he pretended to be because he loved seeing Harry proud) and he didn’t feel the typical foreboding whilst in the dark. It was thunderstorms that reduced Louis to a quiver, made him feel panicky and paranoid, as if everything bad in earth had been reserved for that night. The only saving grace he had was that it wasn’t time to go to bed yet. If he was honest with himself, he would know that he was putting it off for as long as he could, knowing that he’d be alone.

Louis settled into the sofa whilst Harry picked out several films and put them in piles on the floor. It was ten minutes of not talking, just the sounds of nature outside of their window and the beeping of taxis on the road below before Louis decided to ask him what the hell he was doing.

He looked over at him, grinning from underneath his mop of hair that had gotten even longer during his hospital stay. He said that he hadn’t wanted the nurses to cut it, that he liked it for some reason. Louis had commented that he liked it as well which he didn’t allow himself to consider was a contributing factor in its continued presence.  
“I’m organising them,” Harry said. “I want to see how much I remember.”

“You’ve probably seen a lot of them before,” Louis said, shuffling on the cushions to get comfortable. The sofa was just new a couple of months ago so it was nothing like their first, which had been a cosy, scruffy fabric couch with flowers on it. It had looked hideous in the background of their earlier photographs, but it smelt like Harry and felt like home. “We like older movies.”

Harry shook his head. “I know,” he said, going back to his work. “I mean I want to see if my tastes have changed. What movies I like and what ones I don’t, you know?”  
Doctor Holden had said that there was the potential Harry may become fixated on who he had been, never being completely contented until he filled the gaps of those lost years. Louis understood why that would be a problem, but it didn’t stop him from encouraging this behaviour all he could.

Louis smiled comfortingly at the boy and threw a cushion down for him to sit on. “It’ll hurt your back,” he explained when Harry raised an eyebrow, gesturing to the hardwood floors of the apartment. Harry still appeared to be significantly confused but accepted the gift, holding up what had been one of his favourite romantic comedies, Leap Year. It had Amy Adams in it and a man with an Irish accent, which was, according to Old Harry, all he needed in a movie (this had consistently been followed up with Louis hitting him playfully and saying, “If you love the Irish that much go screw Niall” and Harry responding with, “You’re the only one for me babe, you know that”).

“This is amazing,” Harry said. Louis typed ‘Leap Year’ into the search engine on his phone and waited with bated breath for the release date to pop up. The moment that it did (January 2010) his shoulders slumped in disappointment, evident also to Harry who mirrored his expression. “Oh,” Harry said. “Well, that’s okay. We’ll just keep going, right?”  
Louis nodded, feeling decidedly nauseous and like this was a really bad idea, like how he felt one night he and Stan went out drinking back in Doncaster. He’d been feeling down for weeks before then and had avoided alcohol like the plague under his mother’s instruction, vodka being denoted a depressant by Johannah. However, Stan was very persuasive, and despite Louis’ stomach feeling like it was going to twist in on itself he went along with it whilst his mother was out on a date. That ended with him waking up in the airport with no recollection of the night before, so perhaps Louis should’ve learnt after that to listen to his gut.

“Are you sure this is a good idea, Harry?” he asked, scrunching his nose. Harry was sorting through the film boxes too quickly to even be reading them and was becoming increasingly frustrated with each one. “Maybe it’s too much too soon, you know? It’s only the first night home.”

He wanted Harry to disagree, but it was best that he didn’t. The DVD he had been holding slipped out of his hands and clattered to the floor, the box chipping away at the corner it fell on. Louis pretended not to notice when Harry winced at the noise, the way that he always jumped at loud things, and went over beside the boy, sliding around the floor in his sock soles.

“Let’s just watch a movie you like now, okay?” Louis said. It wasn’t that he was angry at needing to be delicate with Harry, he’d always been significantly more gentle with him than he needed to be, it was just that he missed being comfortable with him. He missed the past four years of inside jokes that he could never explain and he craved the way in which Harry knew his voice so well he could pick it out of hundreds in a crowd. “Which one do you wanna watch?”

The younger boy paused for a few seconds before picking a random disc from the line-up in the cabinet. “This one,” he declared, turning it around to show Louis as if asking. It was Love, Actually, a particular favourite of both sixteen year old Harry and twenty one year old Harry. “Perfect,” Louis said, searching up the movie’s title, not that it mattered. (2003. Of course.)

Harry put the DVD into the player, fumbling around slightly with the buttons until he worked out how to turn it on - “You need to really press it, there’s some chewing gum stuck behind it,” Louis provided - before settling down beside Louis on the sofa. He was a careful distance away, about the same as you would sit beside a stranger on the train, and Louis felt a jolt in his stomach at the lack of touch. Movie nights usually meant lazy kissing and wiping away tears because Harry cried at damn near everything, but now it was as if he was with Eleanor, as if they were less than friends when they should’ve been so much more.

“I always loved airports,” Harry said near the ending of the movie as everything came colliding together perfectly in a way that seemed like shade. “I mean, this movie is all about them, isn’t it? But I’ve always wanted to chase somebody through an airport.”

Louis let out a light laugh, hoping the gesture would hide the memories in his eyes. “Like, ‘the one I love’s on that plane, stop it now’ chasing or just ‘we’re going to miss our flight, God I love you’ chasing?”

He looked over at him from the opposite end of the sofa, his hair sprawled out over his face and crowning him like a halo. “Both,” he said with laughter in his eyes. It felt like some kind of casual first date in which they couldn’t touch but could still feel the gravitational pull, and Louis told himself that if the attraction had been there the first time it must be there again.

There was a brief pause before, just to content himself, he asked, “What do you think of me, Harry?”

The smile vanished from his dimpled cheeks. He began picking at the ends of his fingernails, not meeting Louis’ gaze.

“Whatdoyoumean?” he asked all in one breath. It was mumbled so Louis could barely pick it up, but he knew the boy well enough to know from the look in his eyes.

“I mean,” Louis said, inhaling sharply to prevent his voice from wobbling. “I mean, what do you think of me?”

Harry paused, finally raising his head. His mouth was slightly ajar, his lips deliciously pink.

If this had’ve been a movie or a book, that would’ve been the moment in which it all changed. Harry would’ve said something poignant, beautiful and revealing and then they’d probably kiss and fall together all at once, and his memories would come flooding back in a metaphorical wave. But this wasn’t a fairytale, this wasn’t Love, Actually, it wasn’t even love anymore.

“Nothing really.”

Louis should’ve expected that. He didn’t remember him, he barely even knew him. He couldn’t pretend that this was another ‘Oops’ and ‘Hi’ moment, couldn’t imagine that for even a second love at first sight would happen again. His previous cynicism that had been built up through a life of father figures leaving returned abruptly, crashing into him again and again until he could feel nothing but pain.

His feet must’ve moved independently of his body. He found himself standing in the door of his bedroom, breathing more heavily than he ever had before, as if some large weight was leaning on his lungs and pushing all of the oxygen out. “Same here,” Louis said, locking himself in the room before Harry could get another word in.

*

The next morning Louis emerged from the bedroom sheepish and sleepy. The sweet scent of pancakes and syrup danced through the air, warming him from the inside out. He made his way into the kitchen, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards when he caught sight of Harry. His hands rested on the boy’s waist and his head found respite on his shoulder, his lips drifting over Harry’s soft skin.

“I made you breakfast babe,” Harry muttered in his self confident tone, his voice rumbling through Louis’ bones and making him even hungrier for his lips. Louis moved onto his tiptoes, dropping little kisses near Harry’s mouth before the younger boy turned to meet his affections. He was still stirring some custard to put over the pancakes, but it was abandoned as the kiss deepened. Their tongues moved together, Harry tasting like mint and Louis like morning, their bodies heating up.

“I love you so much,” Louis mumbled when they broke apart, Harry giggling as his lips tickled the bareness of his skin. “What’s that about then?” Harry asked with a smirk on his face.

“I had a bad dream last night,” he explained. Harry lifted a wooden spoon coated in custard to his mouth. It was delicious, slightly like vanilla, and Louis made a sound of content before continuing. “You forgot me.”

“How could I ever forget you?” he asked, pouring the sauce over the pancakes and moving over to the breakfast bar with Louis following closely behind. “You’re my world, Lou.”

“I know,” he muttered, sipping on a glass of orange juice. Breakfast had always been his favourite meal. Harry was always so serene in the mornings; even more so than he was during the day, and it was softness on his features that nobody else got to see. This was their thing, being each other’s one and only. “Just a silly nightmare.”

They didn’t speak about it again, moving onto a topic of conversation typical of mealtimes; the food Harry had prepared. Whilst the younger boy dramatically acted out the way in which the pancakes had almost burnt, the custard off his spoon being flung around the kitchen, Louis laughed and thought about how perfect this was.

It was upon the last bite that it all began to fade away. It was nothing major at first, just the silver of the tap becoming muddy in Louis’ vision. Then it transcended into the remaining food on his plate disappearing into a puddle of liquid and Harry’s features becoming hazy. It was almost like a migraine with a pain in his heart instead of his head.  
He woke up with a smile on his face and tears in his eyes, dreaming that it hadn’t been a dream.

*

**_Twenty five days after._ **

A cheque from their life insurance provider came through the door two weeks post-accident. Harry and Louis had spent the previous days co-existing at best; they spoke when they almost crashed into each other in the hall and when Harry couldn’t remember the passwords to his social media accounts, and that was it. Louis could tell that Harry was suspicious of their previous relationship, cautious of the fact that this boy was smart enough to see the way he looked at him. He just prayed he’d never have to explain the past five years; saying it out loud would be too much like suicide. He detested the carefully detached way in which the managers spoke of their partnership, but in a way it was security. It meant that he never had to hear the brunt honesty of what was occurring around him and the way in which he was powerless to stop it.

The envelope was addressed to the partner of Mr Harry Edward Styles to help with what was described as ‘a fatal accident’. The bottom of the letter, written in small print, it was detailed that if they thought this was a mistake to please phone them and confirm that Mr Styles was, in fact, alive.

Had Old Harry have been only a few rooms away, Louis would’ve brought the letter to him and laughed. They’d have probably acted out his dramatic and tragic death, laughing until their stomachs hurt and their eyes were watering with laughter. With New Harry he just walked casually into the kitchen in which he was sitting and placed the notice in front of him.

“Apparently you’re dead,” he said, less humorously than he would’ve liked. Fortunately, despite the doctor’s confusion over the matter, Harry was in the best spirits since the accident he had ever been, finding everything Louis said decidedly hilarious. “You should probably call them and sort that out,” Louis said once Harry had finished laughing. “Before news gets out to the press you’re gone.”

He began to leave after that to go and get a shower, but Harry called him back almost immediately. “Where we really big then?” he asked, sounding genuinely shocked that he could be in a band worth something, that he could be a person worth something. Louis let out a soft chuckle and shook his head.

“We weren’t just big, Harry,” he said, more delicately than he would’ve liked. “We were freaking massive.”

“Bigger than the Beatles?” he asked, disbelieving. Louis could tell that he was trying to downgrade their fame, trying to turn it into something that his cloudy mind could comprehend. He understood because he’d been trying to do the same for the past five years, but yet he wasn’t going to allow this boy to get away with it.

“Bigger than the Beatles,” Louis said, smirking as he did so. Harry looked as if his entire world had fallen apart in that moment, and for once, in however long it had been, Louis allowed himself to break into a grin. “Do you want me to prove it to you?” he asked, tapping Harry playfully on the arm as if punishing him for being cautious. Harry nodded frantically, reminding Louis of the bobble head dolls Niall kept on his mantelpiece.

Within moments they were sitting on the sofa, pressed up tightly against each other in a way that was as comforting as it was terrifying. Louis, on one hand, was enjoying the fact that Harry could be in such proximity despite his accident, whereas Harry was finding it hard to work out exactly why he had lived with this boy for five years when he could so clearly afford an apartment of his own. He knew that he didn’t like to be alone, it was a part of his character that had been deeply ingrained since some barely remembered event in his childhood, but still it seemed odd to him not to be married by now, not even engaged. Two men over twenty years old living together under the pretences of friendship was slightly peculiar by anybody’s standards.

Louis scrolled through the multiple articles that outlined the sordid, and false, details of Harry’s accident and the varying reasons that had been given by sleaze ball journalists for the band’s dissolve to get to the newspapers that still had the stories of their multiple award ceremonies. Harry watched with excitement in his eyes as they watched the videos of their successes, taking up a good few hours’ worth of time with Louis explaining what each award entailed and whether they were fan voted or provided for on their own merit. His voice filled the hollowness within the both of them, providing no space on the cramped sofa for awkwardness or hesitation, just comfortable reminicising.

Harry had remained relatively silent during the entire experience. Finally, he paused the video they were watching to ask a question. “We’re best friends, aren’t we Louis?” he asked, sounding more like a comment. Louis turned away from him and focused back on the screen; lying whilst looking into Harry’s eyes having proven itself on multiple occasions to be near on impossible.

“Yeah, we were,” Louis said. “Still are though. Right?”

Not that the assuring words of a boy who forgot everything else other than his family meant much, but when Harry uttered, “Right” Louis felt the worry that had been building up inside of himself project outwards, filling him with such a sense of lightness that it almost made him dizzy. He grinned at the boy and draped his arm around his shoulders as Harry returned the expression.

“What brought that up?” Louis asked as Youtube continued playing in the background, the volume turned down low by Harry but the smiles and cheering echoing in their ears.  
“You’re always the first one I turn to,” Harry muttered, skipping back a bit to prove his point. It was true, and Louis knew without looking, but he scrutinised their forms regardless. “I guess that’s why we moved in together, right?”

Louis considered the other boy for a few seconds and took in, as he had done every day for the past five years, the way in which his hair framed his face so perfectly, falling down past the emeralds that made up his irises, the green only visible in certain lights. “Do you really not remember anything?” he asked. “Not the time you sat on pillows and went down the stairs on them like a sled in Niall’s house? When you went on a passionate rant to Zayn about smoking and got him to quit for a week? You made pancakes with syrup every morning for breakfast?”

His voice had risen considerably since the start of his questioning, but Harry’s expression remained unchanged. “No,” he said. “I’m sorry.” He truly did sound it. There was a moment of hesitation before he asked, with terror sitting on the contours of his lips, “Was I a good man?”

When Louis didn’t answer immediately the tips of Harry’s ears went slightly red. “I mean...” he began, but Louis cut him off.

“You weren’t just a good man,” he said. He was speaking so assuredly, so confident in what he was saying that Harry found himself hanging off of every word. “You were the best man I ever knew.”

“I’m sorry I’m not him anymore,” Harry said. This was the first time Louis heard his voice shaking in the way that it did before he cried, the voice that he’d heard so frequently before but still made him feel disappointment. Disappointment that the world would hurt this boy enough to make him sound that way or disappointment that he had allowed it, he was never sure.

This seemed to be an invitation for comfort, and so the blue eyed boy clambered even closer to Harry if that was possible, his arm still draped around the boy’s wide shoulders.  
“You are made of the sea and the stars, you hear me?” he said furiously. Harry nodded incessantly, a single tear running down his face, only slightly bewildered at the contact. “And one day, you’re going to find yourself again, okay? And I’m going to be right here when it happens.” Louis prodded the leather of the sofa they were sitting on to emphasise his point.

“You’re so sure of this,” Harry muttered, his lips wet with tears and his cheeks shining with moisture. “What if I never come back? What if I’m like this... forever?”

“You’re still Harry,” Louis said, even if he wasn’t so sure. “Everyone still loves you the same.”

“Do you love me?”

Anticipation settled over the air. Doctor Holden’s words echoed in Louis’ ears. He’d never been so desperate to tune them out.

“Of course I did,” Louis said, watching as a whirlwind of emotions sprawled themselves over Harry’s beautiful face. “You’re my best friend.”

Those four words destroyed Harry, but he just couldn’t understand why.

*

**_Twenty six days after._ **

Mary messaged Louis whilst they were watching Orange is the New Black. Harry was in his too-small pyjamas Anne had brought round and was sitting on the floor whilst Louis was draped over the edge of the sofa. Their current apartment was much larger than the first one had been, so they should’ve been able to spread out more to give each other space, but somehow over the past couple of weeks they’d ended up spending more and more time with only each other for company.

 _‘You never called about that dinner???’_ she texted, with a bevy of emoticons attached on the end to spell out her frustrations. There were two types of people in this world as far as Louis was concerned; those that spent the time typing out words to express their emotions and others who used random circles with scribbles in them as a mean of communication. Harry used to be the first type. Mary was obviously the second.

He paused for a second before replying, looking over at the boy who still sat slightly uncomfortably upon the pillow his mother had left. He had refused to sit anywhere else other than on top of it, claiming that it smelt like home. “I know this is meant to be my house,” he had said when Louis opened his mouth to protest. “But this is all too much, you know? I don’t expect you to understand.” Everything had gotten even more awkward after that if it was possible, but Louis wasn’t sure whether it was because of Harry’s rebuttal or his comforting the previous night.

 _‘Wasn’t sure Harry was up for it,’_ he typed, his fingers moving swiftly over the keyboard. Louis had always been proficient in electronics, being dubbed the ‘techie’ of One Direction by the other boys who frequently brought their laptops to him when they were on tour. He could hack anything he put his mind to, and frequently did, enjoying the rush that came from doing something even minutely illegal. It was also one of the only things that couldn’t be pinned on him, that couldn’t end in a reprimand from men only a few years older than him but infinitely ‘wiser’.

Mary’s response came seconds later. _‘Did you ask him? :/ :?’_

This was a question that rendered Louis unable to answer back for a couple of moments. He pushed his phone to the side, not caring that it wedged itself between the cushions of their leather sofa, and moved over beside Harry.

The young boy acknowledged him with a careful smile and slightly red cheeks, but perhaps that was just because of the fact he had been lying down on them.

“You know Mary?” Louis began, feeling as if he was asking someone out for the first time. Harry nodded, pressing the mute button on the television (Louis had always appreciated the way he did that; Harry made a point of making every conversation the brunt of his attentions. It made Louis feel special in a way that few other things did). “Yeah, well, um... She’s asked us out for dinner with her and her sister tonight and I was just wondering if you were, if we were, if you were up for it.”

Harry paused for a moment, his eyes drifting over Louis’ face. He wasn’t quite sure how to read his expression. It seemed like a mixture of certainty and hesitation, and so he just  
decided to leave Harry until he could finally stutter an answer. “Sure,” he said finally. “Sure, that would be okay. We have to leave here at some stage, right?”

“Yeah,” Louis agreed, letting Harry’s words infiltrate the recesses of his mind that were originally filled up with doubt. “Yeah, we used to go out all the time. Will I invite her to that little Italian place?”

A laugh followed his question. “You’re speaking as if we’re an old married couple stuck in a rut,” Harry joked, but Louis didn’t find it very funny. “I’ve got amnesia, Louis. I have no idea about the Italian place. I don’t even think I like pasta.”

“You used to. You say it’s healthier than bread.”

“Why the fuck do I care if it’s healthier?”

“That’s what I said,” Louis muttered under his breath. The TV show Harry had grown increasingly interested in over the past few days was abandoned in favour of arguing over the restaurant, their voices becoming louder with each passing statement.

“What don’t you get about this, Louis?” Harry asked. “I can’t remember a damn thing!”

“Yes you can,” Louis protested, repeating it a few more times over in his head, as if saying it again and again would make it true somehow. “Now will you keep your voice down? The neighbours will be complaining.”

“I don’t give a shit about the neighbours,” Harry snapped. He turned away from Louis and faced the wall, probably to hide the tears that were evident in the corners of his eyes.

Pre-accident, Old Harry was somewhat easy to argue with. He was so calm in everything, so pacifying that Louis could often use him as a punching bag after a particularly hard day and know when to give it a rest. And when he wanted a blow-up - because in all fairness every human did at some point – he knew when Harry was getting to his breaking point. It was a patience that came with age, and this New Harry didn’t possess it. “Who do you think you are, Harry?” he exclaimed, standing up from the floor with the anger bubbling in his veins.

Harry stood up with him and met his eyes. The green of his eyes were dark, almost overtaken by his dilated irises. It was a look that Louis had seen many times before, but for some reason he didn’t think that this had the same motivation.

“See, that’s the point,” the boy said, in such an icy cold tone that it made a pit of dread settle in Louis’ stomach. Louis felt everything there, everything but anger, and maybe that was why he found himself wishing that Harry would start shouting at him. “I don’t know who I am!”

They settled into a kind of stand-off, the eye contact intensifying with each passing moment. It was the dreaded bridgehead that poets spoke of in their wartime writings; it was bombs going off around them but they remained untouched, grenades falling at their feet and failing to go off. It was everything happening at once and them impervious to it, oblivious to the casualties they were causing by standing there.

In many ways, that moment was the definition of their relationship. They were separate from the world, connected only to each other no matter how fervently they attempted to deny it. They were a pair, an inseparable duo; a duet at the end of a powerful ballad. They were HarryandLouis, in the way that they had been so long ago, and despite the fact that they were fighting Louis found himself marvelling in this brief interlude of normalcy.

When Louis spoke again, it was in a voice that the neighbours would appreciate. It was calm, and it was controlled in a manner that he usually wasn’t. “Are we going to the damn Italian restaurant or not?” he asked, a fake polite smile painted painfully on his features.

Harry mirrored his attitude, even going so far as to place a hand on his hip. Louis stifled a giggle as Harry declared, in a thick and overemphasised London accent, “We might as well, old chap.”

This was the moments in which Louis fell in love all over again. How they went so quickly from arguing to laughing, even when one of them didn’t remember the ease they performed with.

He felt himself grinning more than he had in twenty six days. He held out his arm for Harry to link and smiled at him widely. “Shall we go and get dressed then?” Louis asked, still speaking in an obnoxious tone.

“You’re awful at accents, you know that?” Harry chuckled as they walked towards his bedroom (Louis having messed up a room significantly before he returned home to create the pretence that two of the chambers in their apartment were occupied on a nightly basis).

“I’m offended,” Louis stated, turning away from Harry and untangling his arm from his. Harry gripped at the sleeve of his t-shirt, his fingers clutching desperately to the fabric.

All ruses of humour had removed themselves from the boys with one look. It was a glimpse of confusion. “What will I wear?” Harry mumbled, taking his hand from Louis’ bare skin and slamming it hurriedly in the pocket of his baggy trousers.

“Something nice, I suppose,” Louis answered, scratching the back of his head. “Your old clothes are in my wardrobe if you want to look through them.”

“Do I have a suit?” Harry questioned. Louis nodded and led him into the bedroom, opening up the doors of the closet. He motioned towards the assortment of formalwear Old Harry had collected over the years. They were all shirts and scarves; all black skinny jeans and patent boots. They were Harry as Louis had grown to love him. They were maturity.  
Louis grabbed an unworn suit for himself before exiting, saying that he would dress in the bathroom. He left Harry in the bedroom and changed frantically. The clothes that Harry had touched felt like burning coals against his skin and the suit felt like cool, calm newness. It felt like a beginning and an end, much how the year 2000 must’ve felt to people. He looked in the mirror, his eyes drifting from the top to the bottom. “Looking spiffy, Louis,” he muttered in a deepened voice. “Can’t wait to get you home...”

He drifted off. This was pathetic, he was pathetic, and the boy outside waiting to go to a fancy ass Italian restaurant to eat food he didn’t even like for God knows what reason would probably think he was pathetic as well. He almost had in his mind to text Mary and tell her he’d fallen down the stairs, or maybe something even more ridiculous and painful sounding than that, like being mauled alive by some angry Planet of the Apes like monkeys that had gotten loose in London by some miraculous and totally unrealistic plot twist. Instead, he was weak, and he was even too pathetic to lie his way out of pathetic-ness. He texted Mary with emoticons and smiley faces that felt fake, telling her to meet them in half an hour, and that was it.

Harry was dressed in a shirt, fully buttoned instead of revealing his tattooed skin, black trousers that appeared slightly big (but that might’ve been because Louis was used to super-tight jeans) and a pair of black ankle boots. His hair was down, flopping over his face and covering his eyes. He stood in the middle of the corridor, his feet on top of each other and his posture slumped, and asked Louis without meeting his eyes, “How do I look?”

It was a simple question. It was a simple question, but because Harry had asked it Louis was finding it hard to answer. “Beautiful,” he murmured, his voice so low he was speaking to himself. Harry still heard, being such an attentive listener, and his cheeks went pink, a colour unnecessary in response to a truth being stated.

“I meant how I really look,” Harry protested, but there wasn’t any challenge to his tone.

Louis smiled at him. “I know,” he said. “That’s why I said it.” Harry began arguing again but Louis motioned for him to be quiet and ran into the bedroom, grabbing an all too familiar black bandana. He returned and began work on putting it in Harry’s hair, making sure to allow the little curls at the bottom to frame his face. Harry stayed completely silent, just smiling stupidly at Louis through the whole thing.

“It’ll keep your hair out of your eyes,” Louis explained lamely, stumbling back from Harry when he was finished. Harry grinned at him. “Thanks,” he teased. “I couldn’t have done that by myself, right enough.”

They drove to the restaurant, being met by Mary and Trey who had arrived minutes beforehand. Mary was dressed in a tight navy dress, clinging what looked to be uncomfortably to her slightly plump frame, and was wearing a pair of black heels that she could barely walk in. She was still beautiful in a kind of quirky way, whereas Harry was pretty, like a porcelain doll. Trey had much darker hair than her sister and was wearing lashings of mascara and eyeliner to go with her black playsuit and pumps. In fact, the only pop of colour she possessed came in the form of her pillar box lipstick, sticking her lips together when she talked. Louis shook Trey’s hand and greeted Mary with a kiss on the cheek. Harry did the same with more fluency in his movements.

“He was always the social one,” Louis babbled when they sat down to their dinner, peering down at the extensive menu. Harry shuffled uncomfortably in his seat, making a point of squinting at the choices. “You used to like the Bolognese here,” Louis provided when the waiter came over, leaving Harry with no real decision making to do other than to go with what Louis had suggested. Mary on the other hand waited until Trey had finished deciding, despite the fact that it took her longer than it probably should have, before saying that she’d have half of the pizza.

“I’ve never tried anything here before,” she said to Harry in particular, having not given her sister so much as a glance since they had entered the restaurant. Mary looked over at Louis and mouthed, ‘She has’.

“Tell her,” he responded in whispers as the food was set on the table. Mary shook her head, mumbling a dissent. He didn’t understand her hesitance. Wasn’t he doing the right thing telling Harry of all he was before? Should he wait until the other boy asked? He didn’t know.

“So,” Mary said after a few forkfuls of pizza. “What do you two like to do?”

Louis looked over to Harry for him to answer, and, after realising that he couldn’t, said, “Well I like writing.”

Trey made an interested noise. “Like, as in books or poems or what?”

“Songs,” Louis said, finishing off his first glass of Sprite. An eager Italian teenager bustled past and refilled it without waiting to be called. “Like, for the band and all.”

“Yeah,” Mary said nonchalantly. “How’s that working for you, anyways?”

“It’s on break,” Louis said. It was the truth; One Direction wasn’t over, just on hiatus. However, with boy-bands, didn’t ‘breaks’ usually result in it ending? “I don’t think I’m ready for it to be over just yet.”

“You might not have a choice,” Trey murmured, picking at the corners of her pizza slice. She was the complete opposite of her sister, both in appearance and in speech. Whilst Mary was fuller, Trey was fragile like a bird. She spoke sharply instead of kindly like her sibling, and gave Louis the distinct impression that she was the kind to speak her mind. He found blunt people to be refreshing. He didn’t meet many of them anymore.

Harry’s fork clattered against his plate. “Because of me,” he muttered, and that was the end of that topic of conversation.

The restaurant was buzzing with polite chit-chat, some in English and some in varying other languages, and instead of dwelling on the culture he was surrounded with as he frequently did in situations such as this Louis found himself reflecting on the way in which the people eating in the same restaurant as he was at that very moment knew nothing of true pain. He knew that there was bound to have been men here torn apart by their parents’ divorce, or women hurting from a painful breakup or teenagers trying to find a way out. But none of them knew what it felt like to have the person you’d trusted with every secret forget them all within a matter of weeks.

“How’s your occupational therapist?” Trey asked, her voice sounding like warbles in his mind.

“Very good,” Harry responded almost immediately. “I’ve gone for a couple of appointments.”

“And?” Mary said.

“She says I’m progressing well,” he said. Louis couldn’t contribute anything to the conversation because he’d never asked Harry about his treatments. He’d known he was going to receive them, of course he had. He’d heard the shutting of the apartment door and he’d even driven him to a couple of the appointments when Anne could not. It was just that Harry’s condition had become something of unspeakable, not a given rule but yet an enforced one, like how they used to avoid the subject of their break-up like the plague.  
The rest of the dinner was filled up with meaningless chatter that only served to provide Louis with the knowledge that Trey liked rock music (something he could’ve guessed already) and Mary was working towards a medical degree. However, it seemed to perk Harry up more than he had been before, and when they returned home with the smell of cold on their coats and their fingers pink with the London winter he couldn’t seem to wipe the smile from his face. Louis was confident that they’d made two new friends – friends that Harry could remember, which was also a bonus – but he just couldn’t be as joyful as he dreamt of LA and the way in which their house there would be much warmer than the apartment here.

It was almost ten o’clock, yet they were buzzing on socialisation and didn’t want to sleep. Harry went in to get changed out of his suit at the same time as Louis stripped down to his boxers and pulled on a pair of pyjama bottoms.

If he had been even a slice of happiness before, it was evaporated with the sight of Harry, who emerged from the bathroom with Louis’ sweater lining his torso.

“Why are you wearing that?” Louis asked, having to physically work to get the words out. Harry didn’t seem to notice his discomfort and shrugged.

“Dunno,” he said, sounding distinctly like he did in fact know. “Just think it smells better for some reason.”

He was struck dumb by the simplicity of Harry’s statement, so much so that he barely recognised when Harry declared he was going to work on his journal. Mary had suggested it during the dinner, saying that sometimes it helped, and now that he had a second opinion Harry now thought it was an amazing idea to keep a dream diary.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Lou?” Harry mumbled, pulling down the sleeves of the sweater over his hands and folding his arms against his chest. Louis managed to nod and utter, “Have a good sleep” before Harry went into the double instead of the guest suite.

That night, Louis allowed himself to cry against the door of their previously shared bedroom and wallow in his own self misery.

*

**_Twenty seven days later._ **

In his dream, he noticed the purple of Harry’s veins against the colour of their bedroom wallpaper, alive and moving. Their hands were barely touching, just drifting over each other like the sea and the shore. Harry was breathing heavily with sleep, and Louis could feel his pulse in the lower section of his thumb, could feel it beating strong and sure. He listened intently to it, so intently that he could hear nothing else but his own, and yes. It was just as he had expected. Their hearts were beating the same.

It took only a crick in his neck and the realisation that he’d fallen asleep propped up against Harry’s door to make him realise this dream, this figment of his imagination, was nothing of the sort. It was a memory, one of those vivid ones that usually only crept up during drunken nights to be forgotten with the shots taken. This was the only way he could bear to look at Harry at all.

“Want me to make you tea?” he asked when Harry emerged from the room with significant bed-head and hair that was now down to his shoulders. Harry nodded, stifling a yawn, and settled in beside Louis at the breakfast bar, resting his head against the coolness of the counter. Louis watched his back rise and fall with each breath, marvelling in the movement.

Harry was halfway through his mug of tea when he looked at Louis with wide, awake eyes. “You know those boys,” he began.

“The ones in the band,” Louis muttered.

“Yeah,” Harry said. Louis nodded. “Maybe we could invite them around tonight, or maybe just one at a time, if you don’t want to have a big party. I’m just feeling kind of lonely here with just you and my mum for company.”

Anne had been staying with them on and off, popping around every other evening to talk with Harry independently in the confines of his bedroom. Louis never knew what they spoke of, and he would be damned if he asked (he’d also be damned if he told Harry that pre-accident he’d been all too happy to spend days on end holed away with only Louis by his side).

Louis pondered for probably longer than necessary over which, if any, of the boys to invite over that night. He knew that Liam would probably be out with Sophia, and if he cancelled yet again she would probably dump him, so he was out of the equation. Zayn was always free; the majority of his time was spent singing to himself as he spray painted the walls of his apartment or watching crappy movies with Perrie on their fraying sofa. Niall would do anything to get to see Harry. He had tweeted consistently over the past couple of weeks on behalf of the band, telling their fans how much Harry was improving despite the fact that Niall wasn’t sure of that. He had always been in charge of fan control, always the one to quell rumours with his excitement and enthusiasm. It was easy enough to appeal to crazed teenage girls if you had the mindset of one.

Zayn was deep. He’d probably make Harry feel better, depending on where his mind was at, or worse. Niall had the tendency to improve the mood in any room, regardless of what was occurring. He decided to ask Harry, Mary’s text appearing in his mind. ‘You have to treat him like a HUMAN, Lou,’ she had typed that morning. ‘He’s got thoughts and feelings. He’s smart. You just need to act as if nothing has happened.’

Her advice was easier said than done. Talking to Harry was becoming increasingly like pulling off a plaster at a painfully slow pace.

“Hey, Harry,” he called out over the silence of the apartment after a few moments of consideration over his other options. The other boy glanced up and raised an eyebrow. “Do you want Zayn or Niall to come over?”

“I dunno,” Harry said with a slight laugh. “I don’t know either of them.”

“Fair enough,” Louis said, hitting himself internally for his stupidity. “I didn’t mean... I mean...”

“Invite both of them over, sure,” Harry said, flicking through the pages of a magazine that Louis had already checked over for mentions of him. Thankfully, Lindsay Lohan had done something crazy instead that week and so an amnesic boy band member was old news. “I’ll have to meet them all anyways.”

“The more the merrier, right,” Louis muttered, mostly to himself. He looked down at his phone and at his thumbs floating above the keyboard, trying to decide upon the right way to word it.

 _‘Come on over, my amnesic not-really-boyfriend has called for you’_. No.

 _‘Dinner tonight at my house. Harry wants to remember you but sees no problem forgetting me.’_ No.

 _‘Hey guys. Want to come over for dinner tonight?’_ proved just vague enough that Louis could bring himself to send it.

“You’ll like them,” he said after he was finished. “You did before.”

“Yeah.”

“Niall’s hilarious. And Zayn likes all those indie artists you used to.”

Harry scrunched his eyebrows together. “Yeah,” he muttered, which now seemed to be his favourite word. Louis tried to swallow his irritation, but it was proving difficult.

“You know, you could pretend for even a minute you gave a shit,” Louis snapped, slamming his phone down against the kitchen counter. The screen cracked in the corner, a few shards of plastic falling out against the granite. “I’m busting my shit for you and you don’t give a fuck.”

“You’re right,” Harry said, sounding as if he was trying to do nothing but pacify Louis, despite wincing at the noise of the phone breaking. “I should be more thankful for what you’re doing. But you should do something for me as well.”

“Can’t wait to hear this,” Louis muttered to himself.

“Tell me the truth,” Harry said, standing up from the sofa and moving closer to Louis. When the older boy took as many steps back as Harry took forwards, they both remained three metres away from each other, not moving any further.

“What truth?” Louis asked. A thin layer of sweat appeared on his forehead, reminding him that he knew the answer. It was whether Harry did that was the question. Louis could bullshit his way through many things, but this boy-wonder always had a way of getting it out of him. “I’ve told you the truth.”

“Yeah?” Harry said. “Well, I disagree. Friends don’t look at each other like ... like that.” He pointed straight at Louis at that point, but Louis was nothing but thoroughly confused (or pretending to be, at least).

“Like what, Harry?” he barked, thumping his hand against his thigh in frustration. “Like what?”

“Like I’m ...” Harry whispered. “Like I’m your entire world.”

And God, Louis had never loved Niall and Zayn more than he did at that very moment. Before he had a chance to respond, the bell to their apartment rang through their ears. “I’m gonna get that,” Louis yelped, basically running towards the front door, tripping over his own feet in his panic.

The blue of the Irish boy’s eyes were the first thing Louis saw, followed by a fluster of dyed blond hair poking out from the bottom of a snapback. He grabbed Louis in a tight embrace, flinging his arms around him and swaying on the spot manically before running into the living room. A loud yell of, “Harry!” resounded from down the hall, and a distinct thump followed. Louis stifled a laugh, already thankful for Niall’s presence, and turned around to greet Zayn who was rolling his eyes.

“You’re looking beautiful as always,” Louis teased, flicking the edge of the boy’s coat.

“You look like shit,” Zayn responded, no real humour in his tone.

Louis had been lying, of course. Zayn looked terrible. His cheeks were sunken in; hollow like they had been that time in 2012 when he experimented with cocaine. The white of his eyes were red and bloodshot, barely visible, and his pupils were widely dilated. However selfish it was, Louis decided that he had enough shit on his plate than dealing with Zayn’s problems. Wasn’t that Perrie’s job?

“Charming,” Louis laughed, guiding Zayn into the apartment and shutting the door behind him. He’d been expecting to see Harry and Niall sitting on opposite ends of the sofa, or perhaps the floor, discussing awkwardly the ins and outs of his disease, possibly conversing about their previously shared history. Whatever he had expected, it certainly wasn’t to see them wrestling in the middle of the fur rug, Niall clambering on top of Harry in what seemed like a two-sided tickle war with a predetermined winner.

Zayn, with his usual amicable expression, settled into the sofa after grabbing a bottle of beer from the kitchen. He watched the boys with mild amusement as they fought. Louis couldn’t even move from the shock of seeing something that struck so closely to normalcy. He stayed in the door of the living room, watching with wide eyes as Harry won over Niall, pinning him down by his wrists and laughing whilst saying, “I win, just admit it, I win!”

“You will never get a mercy out of me,” Niall declared, kicking out around him, his legs flailing desperately. He was wearing a pair of Nike trainers that looked distinctly like Harry’s, and with a jolt Louis recognised that this was a reunion as well; he wasn’t the only one affected by the accident.

“Too bad Li couldn’t be here,” Zayn murmured halfway through his beer. It was a relatively regular remark, which seemed to be aided by alcohol. Louis nodded, mixing his vodka and coke with a straw.

“It would’ve been like the band was together again,” he muttered. Zayn opened his mouth to say something. “I’d be careful there,” Louis cut in as Niall started rugby tackling Harry on the ground.

“Why?” Harry asked, his eyes delightfully wide and filled with laughter. He was looking up at him through messed up hair and an exhilarated smile, and Louis found it very difficult not to kiss him on the mouth right there and then. A groan of pain escaped the boy’s lips suddenly, disturbing Louis’ daydream in which they made out right in front of their band-mates. Niall rolled off him immediately, apologising profusely.

“You have back pain now,” Louis smirked, finally working up the nerve to drink.

“Holy shit,” Harry mouthed. He wiped his forehead with his hand, feeling the sweat that had formed there. “I’m old.”

“Nah, you’re not,” Louis mumbled fondly, Harry proceeding to fight Niall with caution in his movements. You’re how forever looks.

*

“Without forgetting it is quite impossible to live at all,” Zayn quoted over his third glass of champagne. “Friedrich Nietzsche.”

“Beau’ful man, tha Netzi,” Niall slurred, his words becoming jumbled in the pools of vodka he’d consumed.

“I mus’ be livin’ de dream den,” Harry muttered, his arm wrapped around Niall’s shoulders. He was in the same state as the two other boys; intoxicated to the point of being completely wasted. Louis was beginning to wonder if he’d remember their reunion in the morning.

For the first time in his life, Louis was the only one not drunk. At least, he didn’t think he was. He was decidedly light headed and swaying slightly on his feet, but that might’ve been the lack of sleep or the mere fact of Harry’s presence. It usually was Harry that made him fall over with love in his eyes, after all.

Zayn, who had been resting his head against the worktop, sat up straight in his barstool quite suddenly. A square patch of red had appeared from where he had been laying, and it looked odd on his otherwise perfect face, making Louis chuckle. It was an amazing thing that they were all together despite what had happened. Louis was so, so lucky to have such amazing friends. (Yeah, he was sentimental. But drunk? Never.)

“Do you think we’d be friends if we weren’t in the band?” Zayn asked, his words distinct and formed. The brown eyed boy spoke more crisply, if it was possible, under the influence of beer than he did when he was sober.

Louis himself had often considered that question late at night as he held Harry’s hand in his own, or even more recently staring at the empty side of the bed. Would One Direction have found each other in another life? Would they be sitting here together if they had all copped out on the X Factor, if they hadn’t been offered that recording contract that destroyed more things than it fixed?

“I’d’ve thunk so,” Niall blubbed. “We’d met before, the lot of us, righ?”

Harry scrunched his eyebrows together. “We did?” he asked, looking over at Louis, who was feeling increasingly awkward not being plastered.

“Yeah,” Louis said finally, when Harry seemed determined not to let it go. “We sort of met at a concert before we were put in the band, you and me.”

“Really?” Harry asked. “So when we me’ in de bat oom...”

“It wasn’t the first time.”

“Huh,” he said. After a moment of hesitation, “So we kinda li’ soul mat den?”

“Yeah Harry,” Louis said, confident only because he was sure Harry wouldn’t remember the conversation in the morning. “We’re kind of like soulmates.”

“Yur makin’ meh sic,” Niall slurred, faking vomiting. “Or maybe dat’s ju the vodkah.”

Zayn thumped him on the back, making the Irish boy choke slightly on his liquor. “How much have you drunk tonight, idiot?” he asked, laughing with his entire face. Niall shrugged, pulling a comically confused face, and Harry pointed at him.

“Tha’s how I look all da time,” he yelled, causing the entire table (bar Louis) to burst into fits of uncontrollable giggles.

The last time Harry had been that delirious, it had been several Christmases ago during an interview. They had just started dating so every touch felt like an explosion of passions and energy, like a secret that could only be whispered through careful gestures and intense make-out sessions in the back rooms of various studios. Little did they know that this feeling would continue for years afterwards with no sign of relent.

Zayn had gotten the bright idea of wrapping Louis up like a present, and then Niall (who might just have been as fond, if not more, of the relationship the two boys shared as they were) suggested that the ‘package deal’ be put together whilst he laughed at his own pun. Harry was all too enthusiastic about being taped up against Louis, touching him everywhere; back to chest, ass to dick, his body literally taped to his boyfriend’s. It was everything and more than was on his Christmas list, or at least that was what he mumbled later that night after a couple of shots. He proceeded to blush profusely over the confession for days afterwards.

The minutes that Harry spent giggling hysterically behind Louis were perhaps the best they had experienced in their young lives thus far. He had huge and sparkly eyes, glistening with love for this boy who was trying desperately to hide his own giddiness. Louis wiggled himself against Harry’s crotch, because what was the point of being taped together if he couldn’t take advantage of the situation? (They only stopped laughing when it struck Louis that, “Fuck, this is actually turning Harry on” and they demanded to be released so that they could crash back together again with moveable limbs and kissable lips.)

Basically, Louis was so in love with this boy who was laughing against his hair, and he was in love with this band and with Christmas and the fact that his birthday was mere days away, until he saw the cameras. All that went through his mind was a series of profanities and flashbacks.

It wasn’t as bad back then because not as many fans had caught on, but he knew that if the whole thing got out (Harry kissing his neck gently from behind and the dirty talk and the grinding) that it would never truly disappear again, no matter how much money was passed under desks. He would later learn that he had nothing truly to worry about; the video came out along with the interview and there was a whole two seconds of Harry giggling against the nape of his neck, only two seconds when it could’ve been so much more. He had neglected to tell the managers the way in which the cameraman must’ve undoubtedly filmed more than he had given over in the insane hope that someday that information would get out and that would be it, no hiding anymore. It was ridiculous though, and he felt guilty enough afterwards to look up the man and pay for the footage himself, because it wasn’t only for him that this was happening. Zayn, Liam, Niall and indeed Harry’s dreams were riding on this band, and Louis wasn’t going to be the one to destroy what they had worked so hard to create.

Niall and Zayn had been offered a night’s stay at Casa la Tomlinson-Styles, but they refused, and so Louis called them a taxi. “You can’t drive tonight,” he said to Zayn who had initially refused the lift. “You’ve been drinking.”

“I’m fine though,” Zayn had protested, but his eyes were cloudy and his breath smelt of beer. It was only the scent of alcohol that made Louis shake his head vehemently, now speaking determinately to his friend.

“I’m not losing another goddamn person, got it?” he said, furiously punching in the taxi number on the house phone, dislodging some of the keys in the process. Zayn raised an eyebrow, and Louis lashed out at him for, “Always judging, as if you’re some perfect fucking human being!”

The long story was that Louis thrashed around for a bit, taking his anger out on the walls he and Harry once kissed against, watched by a considerate and slightly drunken Zayn who then cried with him as he slumped to the floor. The short story was that Niall ended up going home in a taxi whilst Zayn stayed and made a cup of tea for Louis whilst Harry lay slumped and passed out on the sofa.

“Magic makes forgetting hard,” Zayn had muttered into Louis’ ears as they fell asleep in each other’s arms. “Nicholas Sparks.”

“Will you quit quoting sappy romantic shit,” Louis responded, his fingers drifting over Zayn’s tattoos, tracing the dark black lines. “It’s making me depressed.”

“Might be Harry who’s doing that.”

“Nah,” he mumbled. “Harry’s perfect.”

Zayn rolled his eyes. “Course he is.”

Louis laughed, and that was the last thing he remembered before he woke up the next morning.

*

**_Twenty eight days later._ **

“My head is throbbing,” Harry muttered, clawing his way along the sofa towards the aspirin Louis had left on the arm. Louis was sitting on the edge of the cushions, stroking the top of Harry’s head with his thumb, marvelling in the smoothness of his curls and the way that he felt so delicate beneath his fingertips.

“I know baby,” he cooed, passing over a drink of water in a shallow glass. Harry gulped it back with the tablet, swallowing as easily as he always did, and Louis had to physically stop himself from making some kind of obscenely inappropriate comment about Harry’s gag reflex. “Hangovers are tough.”

“I haven’t had this sore a head since that one night,” Harry looked up at him. “You know that night in July?”

“Yeah, I remember,” Louis agreed. “You and Nick went out and came back completely trashed.”

“I got hit on by a wrestler that night,” Harry said, looking significantly impressed with himself, as he had the first time he recounted the story. “He was all sweaty and massive, but I turned him down.”

“And why was that?”

“I dunno,” Harry admitted, finally dropping eye contact and returning it to the now empty glass of water. “I can’t remember.”

Just like that, the force of the accident came crashing into Louis once again, battering him like an endlessly tormenting wind against the surface of a thrashing sea, cutting into every fibre of his being that had ever housed thoughts of Harry.

“Why did you move out, Louis?” Harry asked, placing his hand over Louis’ to keep it stroking his hair. Little pinpricks of heat tickled the back of Louis’ fingers.

“Out of where?” he asked, because Harry touching him wasn’t helping his thought process in the slightest. Harry made a little noise that showed his irritation at having to speak more.

“Out of your parents’,” Harry paused, “Your mum’s.”

‘At least you remember something’ tugged at the end of Louis’ tongue which had forgotten the taste of Harry’s mouth, but he didn’t allow it to get any further than that. “I was sick of being moved around,” he said simply, and only when Harry raised his eyebrows, he elaborated.

“Mum’s had three husbands since I was born,” he said. “And boyfriends in between. I was tired of her moving me around and having to be the man of the house, so I decided to make my own rules.” Louis let out a long, drawn out sigh. Harry noticed how beautiful he was in this light, not completely sure that it was remaining alcohol in his bloodstream that made him think this. “I mean, I love my sisters, and my mum, more than I love myself. It’s just that it got all so much, you know? And living with you...”

He stopped again and glanced at Harry with such a poignant look in his eyes that he felt sure his heart ceased beating.

“Living with you felt like freedom. Still did, five years later.”

There was brief silence in which Louis regretted ever saying anything. He should’ve just shook his head and said, “Leave it for another day”, should’ve tucked Harry back into the sofa and allowed him to fall asleep against his legs. He cleared his throat, coughing back the lump that had formed during the interlude.

“Why did I move out then?” Harry asked. Louis had in his right mind to turn around and say, ‘Fuck me Harry, what do I know?’ but he was still in love with the kid, so he humoured him.

“You loved London,” he said simply. Harry pursed his lips and nodded, seemingly satisfied, but when Louis went into the kitchen to make him a cup of tea he thought about this answer further.

Harry had been down to London before with his parents. Most people who lived in England had been to the capital city at one time or another; it was sort of a rite of passage. However, he had never been so captivated by the city and its buildings as to leave his mother, who he loved more than anyone and anything, and his sister, who he hadn’t spent a day without, at the tender age of sixteen with a boy he had just met. It didn’t add up. It didn’t make sense. No matter who he had been in the past life, he had still been Harry Edward Styles, and he just wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t do that unless he was completely captivated by the boy with the tight trousers and the bright eyes (and maybe he was).  
The realisation came with a crash, an unsuspected explosion inside of Harry that only intensified when Louis re-entered the room with a cream mug grasped in his small hands. He had always prided himself on being observant - overly trusting, but always perceptive – so how had he missed this?

He’d loved Louis. With all that he had possessed in his teenage body, he loved that boy, enough to move across the country simply to see him smile.

So why was Louis telling him they were only friends?

*

Harry became obsessed over the next few days with learning all he could about himself on the internet. Louis had furiously protested, saying, “It’s hardly a reliable source now, is it?” when, if he was honest, he was freaking out in case Harry caught wind of their relationship, which was a more hotly debated topic now than it had ever been before.  
The famously debated documentary A Year in the Making turned out to be the most emotional video Harry watched, followed shortly by This Is Us, which made him burst into tears at all he had forgotten. “I’ve always wanted to be one of those people who didn’t really care that much about what people thought about them,” Old Harry’s voice echoed through the computer speakers. Louis was standing in the kitchen, frozen over a tub of ice cream, listening in to the snuffling that came from the living room. “But, I just don’t think I am.”

Over the years and vodka that had been drunk, Louis and Zayn had many conversations about what would happen if the band fell apart due to complete mental breakdowns. Zayn always spoke with wisdom about how he didn’t believe Harry would snap; he’d just direct all of the criticisms that he’d been the brunt of inwards. Louis tended to agree. Harry took things to heart, even what the fans said, and he overcompensated a lot (such as apologising in situations where no apology was necessary). Fame had messed with his head slightly, and although he remained the beautiful boy Louis had always known, it was different in a way that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

Obviously Harry had grown up quite a bit since A Year in the Making, but before the accident, the essence was still there. Harry was a good man who wanted people to think good things about him. He didn’t mind judgements about his clothing, hair or outward appearance, he had matured past that. It was when people – specifically journalists – spoke about his morals, his ethics; the things that his mother had initially taught him and which he himself had cultivated.

It might even have been a flaw in his goodness, for lack of a better word. So no, he wouldn’t snap like Zayn predicted Liam doing (collapsing into drugs and alcohol and cigarettes to fill the empty voids left by flashing lights), but the regret that he felt for even a meagre fight for his integrity would build up inside of Harry, eventually destroying him from the inside out.

“Louis?” New Harry’s voice came from the room. Louis scuttled towards the door, still holding the uneaten ice cream in his reddening fingers.

Harry was chewing on the side of his forefinger, a nervous habit that had developed over the past couple of months. It was a ‘silent technique’ as well, according to the public relations people. Whenever Harry felt like saying something in an interview he knew very well would cost money being erased, he hurt himself to prevent his mouth from opening. Louis saw a lot of things wrong with that – most ordinary people would – but the managers didn’t care as long as it worked. It was as if they were encouraging self harm as a means of secret keeping. They had no idea what they were dealing with.

“Was fame how I imagined it?” he asked. Louis thought how salt must be a sacred thing; both tears and the ocean contained it.

“How did you imagine it?” he mumbled. He’d gone back to feeling sick, probably due to the fact that Niall and Harry fell so easily back into each other when LouisandHarry did not, and so he couldn’t bring himself to eat the ice cream that was gradually freezing his hand off.

The green eyed boy let out a loud groan. “Stop doing that,” he snapped.

“Doing what?”

“Pretending we haven’t talked about this all before,” Harry responded irritably. “I talked to Niall last night, you know. I remember. He told me we were always the closest of the boys, that we talked all night during the X Factor and kept the rest of them awake. What else were we talking about if not this?”

“There are plenty of other things in the world to discuss,” Louis pointed out weakly. “I’d rather be talking about any of them right now, to be honest.”

“There you go again!” Harry yelled triumphantly. His eyes had widened considerably at Louis’ words, and he was grinning somewhat manically. “Any time we try to talk about the band you change the subject! Any time I ask you about photo-shoots, or managers, or God forbid newspapers,” He paused to point to the waste paper basket which was filled to the brim with discarded magazines and tabloids. “You get all shut down and won’t say a word. What the hell is going on? Is this a band or a fucking cult?”

“Bit of both, actually,” Louis chuckled despite himself. “Illuminati and all.”

Now Harry looked comically shocked. “Are they...” he whispered in reverence. “Real?”

Louis considered lying to him, considered having a bit of fun with the situation before thinking better of it. “No,” he said. “Nah, they’re not, not officially. There’s worse than the Illuminati to worry about anyways.”

“Is there?” Harry asked, and when Louis pursed his lips he grabbed his hand.

Louis looked down at their entwined fingers with something stirring inside of his stomach. “Harry...”

“Tell me, please. Don’t you want me to remember?”

He smiled down at the curly haired, green eyed wonder that he used to call his and nodded. “Course I do, Curly,” he said. “Just a bit hard to bring up all the memories, you know?”

“Yeah, well. This would be a good place to start,” Harry said as Louis sat down beside him. He gestured to three discs lined up along the arm of the sofa, each written on with permanent marker in writing Louis recognised as his own.

“Our albums?” he said, scrunching his eyebrows together in confusion. Harry nodded.

“Yeah,” he said. “I want to know more about the band, you know? If it was such a big part of my life...”

There were parts that were bigger, Harry, much bigger and brighter and more fantastic than some recording contracts and hours in a studio singing meaningless lyrics.  
“Then it’s important I remember, right?”

Louis glanced over at him, and then at the laptop in between their knees, and then at the discs that, admittedly, held more memories than most photo albums. They held memories of after-shows, pre-shows, of banging in supply closets and outrunning security. They held the screams of the crowd and the flashing of their lights, the questioning of the fans and the anticipation that built up before going on stage. It was an amazing feeling, one that Louis didn’t think he’d ever get over, but sometimes it got overwhelming. When it did - and it was easier on the latest tour because they were doing more stadiums than ever before - he’d look upwards towards the sky and take in the infinity of the universe and how he was just a speck and he’d be strangely comforted by that; that he wasn’t a big deal even though he was meant to be.

“Sure Harry,” he said finally, being greeted by a small and tentative smile. “We have to start somewhere.”

“How many times have we said that before?” Harry laughed, picking Up All Night and placing the album in the CD player.

They were three hours through when Louis noticed Harry had stopped listening in reverent silence. In fact, he was humming along, mumbling some of the words before they were sung. Louis watched him out of the corner of his eye, scared that to make direct contact would stop it from happening (whatever ‘it’ was). He muttered the exact lyrics to Happily and Strong, his long fingers drifting subconsciously over the anchor tattoo on his wrist.

It was infuriating. He could remember all the useless things – like Nick Grimshaw and the lyrics to a song that had once meant something – but not the meaning behind them, the meaning behind Louis and Harry. He could recall, without even meaning to, the words in which they had written mere months before the accident, but didn’t know about the bathroom or the Script concert or the jumping into each other’s arms on the X Factor stage (in fact, not even the entirety of the X Factor). It was too bad they didn’t have a tape recording of their relationship. That would solve all his problems...

“I need to go check something, Harry,” Louis mumbled, pushing himself off the sofa cushion. He was slightly wobbly on his feet having sat in the same place for so long, and his cheeks were red from the heat of Harry’s body. “You’re a human furnace,” he said to the green eyed boy as he walked to the bedroom, trying to disguise the shakiness in his voice. He was helped by Harry’s laughter, only blocked out when he closed the door behind him.

It was right where he had hidden it beforehand, nestled in between forgotten boxes and photo frames containing forever smiling faces. He clasped it in his sweaty hands, turning it over and over again on his fingertips, admiring the way the light reflected off the DVD and bounced onto the walls. He thought momentarily about showing it to Harry with some kind of quick and quirky statement outlining their relationship and the whole ironic way this situation had panned out, but then he thought of the meetings, and of Zayn and Liam and Niall, and he thought of Old Harry curled up against his side and the purple of his veins and he changed his mind. He wimped out, all because he was scared of what might happen, just like he always was. God, it was infuriating.

“Louis!”

He didn’t respond until his name was repeated louder a few seconds later. He dropped the disc onto the bed and ran out to see Harry holding a burnt finger.

“I told you not to touch the bottom of the laptop, asshole,” he said, somewhat fondly, taking the computer off his lap and bringing Harry over to the sink. “This is the second time you’ve got burnt now in a month.”

“Sorry about that,” Harry mumbled, but he didn’t sound sheepish like he had before. In fact, he was looking almost... smug, as if he had elaborately planned this whole injury just to get a caring gaze and a grasped hand under the coolness of the water.

But that was ridiculous, Louis told himself. Harry barely remembered him. He wouldn’t stoop to juvenile tactics of admitting a crush; he wouldn’t admit a crush at all. It was just the memories getting to him. That’s all it was.

*

Louis remembered the day as if it was an hour ago. He remembered the devilish smirk on Harry’s face when he came home with a brand new camera and a sheer black shirt on, his tattoos just visible through the fabric. It was their fourth anniversary, and Louis had been shocked when Harry begged that they didn’t do anything. “We’ll just chill out at home,” the green eyed boy had said when Louis protested. “It’ll be perfect. Quiet, just like we like it, right?”

Despite Harry’s words, Louis had been expecting a surprise party or something, and had thoroughly convinced himself that anything less than that would be completely unacceptable. However, he gave Harry the benefit of the doubt, and found himself feeling distinctly okay about what the boy had actually planned.

“What’s all this about?” he asked as Harry moved over to him, wedging the camera between their torsos so contact was the only thing protecting it from falling. He was wearing the black trousers Louis loved about him, the ones that lifted his ass and tightened his thighs even further, and the shirt was one that he had remarked on for its beauty during one of their latest concerts. “Getting all dressed up? Almost as if there was a party...”

Harry laughed at his hinting, kissing into Louis’ mouth. He resisted slightly, teasing, but then melted into the younger boy’s arms, their skin melding together so the lines between their bodies became blurred. He moved his lips to Louis’ neck, drifting them along the sensitive skin covered in stubble which left delightfully red scratches all over his pretty mouth.

“I read something on the internet...” he said.

“Oh God,” Louis responded, rolling his eyes and groaning (maybe for more reason than one). “What did we say about you googling medical issues?”

Harry chuckled against his neck, that well known glint in his eyes, the smirk so confident and hot it made Louis weak as hell. He propped himself up against Harry, his legs becoming increasingly unstable, licking along his exposed chest, tasting the love against the skin. “Nah, that’s not what I meant,” he mumbled, followed by a string of whispered profanities as Louis moved upwards to his Adam’s apple. “App... Apparent-Apparently the four year mark is when – holy shit – when things start getting boring so I was thinking... keep doing that... we could, spice it up, you know?”

Louis moved back, capturing the camera that fell slightly and scrutinised the lens. “You mean?” he whispered, pointing to the video recorder. The tip of Harry’s ears went slightly red, innocence hidden underneath all of his raw sexuality. “Only if you want to,” he hurried. “I was just thinking, I mean. I trust you, so...”

“I trust you too,” he said, thinking how Harry knew just how to spice things up, and how all it took was him bare to make Louis see stars (he’d told him often enough).

Sex was inherently awkward, in Louis’ opinion, with all of those body parts revealed, all of his insecurities laid out straight in front of Harry who he saw as nothing but perfect. It was embarrassing to think about, despite the amount of innuendos he had muttered into Harry’s ear during interviews. The whole idea just seemed... weird to him. He wasn’t a virgin before he met Harry, neither of them were each other’s first, but in many ways he hadn’t made emotional love before. It had been about passion before, never about making the other person happy, never about seeing them bare and knowing that it was all for you. With Harry, when every look and glance was poignant, sex was even more so. But it felt strangely natural to Louis to be as close to Harry as two humans could be; in fact, he wanted to be closer.

It had been slightly humorous at the beginning (they started filming three times because Harry couldn’t get Louis’ shirt off with his shaking hands), and there had been a bit of confusion over exactly which button to press to begin the tape, but by the time it started they were both thoroughly ready, albeit emotional.

“Are we gonna go for the sappy shit,” Harry smirked up at Louis. “Or are we gonna go full on porn?”

“I don’t think we’re anywhere near porn artists, baby,” Louis responded, trying not to look at the other boy’s lips as he said that. His eyes remained focused on the green of his irises and the way it was evident from only his eyes that Harry was grinning uncontrollably. “Well, maybe you are, but not me.”

“Dunno about that,” Harry murmured, working his hands down Louis’ back to his ass. “You’ve got a porn star booty.”

“And you’ve got a porn star name,” he replied, laughing against Harry’s lips.

The next hour was filled with breathless pants and groans of each other’s names, all cemented into the digital sphere for eternity, never to be erased. Afterwards, when Harry was wearing nothing but a towel and a placid, satisfied expression he watched as Louis burned the video to the disc, kissing the boy’s exposed shoulders. In fact, they were damn near going again as Louis held the disc up in front of him, saying, “This is our sex tape, Harry. We’ve made a sex tape.”

Louis wondered with a grin when Harry fell asleep on his bare thighs what the fans would think if they saw it, what the media would print if this got out. He deleted it from the camera, checking three times to make sure it was gone, and held onto the disc, feeling something like regret bubbling in his stomach. “You’re only going to cause problems,” he mumbled to the CD as Harry snored beneath it. “I can feel it.”

And he’d be right.

 **Acrasia** (noun): Lack of self control, when you act against your better judgement. Or Harry Styles.

*

**_Twenty nine days after._ **

Harry was beginning to consider the fact that he might have a bit of a problem.

It all began when Louis returned from searching for whatever he had been determined to find, and Harry found himself running out of adjectives with which to describe his beauty.

It wasn’t a big thing. Harry was just beginning to fall for Louis in a way that he didn’t quite understand, because he’d always considered himself straight before, right? (He could remember something significant about that as well, but he just couldn’t put his finger on what.)

No matter whether he was okay with his attraction or not, he spent his 11:11 wishes on one thing and one thing only; a desire to see Shakespeare resurrected so that he could write a sonnet about the gorgeousness that was Louis Tomlinson’s eyes.

His initial thoughts of the boy had been simple, could even be considered derogatory (he had inferred that the boy was an overconfident douche-bag solely dependent on alcohol and sarcasm). Now, he was finding him to be almost endearing, soft in his movements and gentle in his touch, as if Harry would break underneath his fingertips. It was a nice thought, to be considered so pure and fragile by someone of Louis’ appearance. To be one of Louis Tomlinson’s favourite people, as he must’ve been, seemed to be a great achievement, lesser only than the Nobel Peace Prize. Louis gave the distinct impression after four weeks of living together that he loved deeply and helplessly when he dared to love at all, and Harry admired that in a person.

“Mum wants to see me for a while,” Louis said, clutching his new phone in his hand. He had broken the other one. Harry nodded, pretending that he didn’t notice the way in which Louis’ lips curved around certain words, his accent decidedly captivating. “So if you’re alright here, I was thinking of going out to get lunch with her and then... I’ve got a few other things to sort out.”

Harry knew he was referencing his life insurance and various other documents, as well as the managers who had been calling for days on end now, so he didn’t say anything other than, “That’s okay. Have fun. Tell Johannah I say hi.”

“There’s food in the fridge,” the blue eyed boy said, shrugging on his coat. “If you get hungry.”

“Thanks Mum,” Harry teased, flicking to another channel on the muted television. When Louis didn’t move towards the front door and stayed looking worriedly at Harry, he said, “I’ll be fine, I swear! I’m over twenty one years old now, remember?”

Louis laughed, shaking his head. “You make a good point,” he said. “Do you want me to get you anything when I’m out?”

Harry shook his head, but then after a glance from Louis that appeared he actually wanted to buy something for Harry he made it up on the spot. “Maybe just a pack of M&M’s?” he said. Louis grinned at him.

“M&M’s,” he repeated. “Got it. I’ll see you soon, ba... Harry.”

And like that he was gone, leaving Harry even more confused and with a feeling in his stomach that was as if he’d been kicked there and left writhing around on the ground in pain.

He made himself a microwave meal and watched TV, googled One Direction and perused a few more videos on Youtube, but half an hour after Louis left he still felt emptiness welling up inside of him. His head was decidedly heavy with thoughts and repressed memories, being somewhat afraid of what he had lived through beforehand. He knew that Louis was something more than his best friend though, he could feel it in his gut. There were just too many coincidences for it not to be fate.

It was wrong, and he knew it, but for some reason Harry couldn’t stop himself from walking into Louis’ bedroom and rummaging around the drawers for some sign of what he was thinking, or remembering, he wasn’t sure which. After twenty minutes of searching, nothing was found apart from a variety of clothes in drastically differing sizes and a collection of rings that fit his fingers perfectly. There was one that he found different than the others; it was silver and distinctly like a wedding band, but they couldn’t have been married, he would’ve remembered that...

Harry moved over to the wardrobe, pulling over Louis’ desk chair to allow him to get to the top of it. His hands ran over the clothes that were there, finally resting on a collection of what felt like photo albums. He plucked them down, ignoring the variety of garments that fell down with them and settled down on the unmade bed with the photographs. There was a variety of Polaroid pictures and digital photography, but the general theme seemed to be him and Louis; they were together in almost every picture. His mother and sister, as well as what could only have been Louis’ family, were in a few, and the boys from the band were in a lot of them as well. What caught Harry’s eye was one set of photos in particular.

It looked as if it had been taken in one of those photo-booths Harry used to go into with his school friends at the fun fair. The first photo was innocent, depicting nothing but the friendship Louis had described, but the second told a different story. Photo Harry’s eyes were turned to Louis, focusing almost solely on his lips. He knew what was to happen before it did, but Harry still wasn’t prepared for the next two photos which depicted a quickly deepening kiss.

He stared at it for a good few moments, butterflies assaulting his stomach, deliberating over how their lips stacked together so perfectly, their movement casual around each other. It was just as how the videos had been; Harry and Louis gravitated towards each other no matter what the situation. Yet, if it was as important to them as it obviously was (Harry was beginning to feel the chap off Louis’ lips, the heat off his skin, the breath on his mouth) then how had he forgotten it? How much would it be hurting Louis, to see the one person he loved most in the world unable to remember so much as his name?

Underneath all of the pity that had erupted there remained a fire of anger. Louis could sugar-coat things, twist them into a perfect plait as he so ultimately would, but Harry knew the truth. Louis had point-blank lied to him, refused to tell him the details of their relationship for God knows what reason.

Harry flicked through the rest of the photo album, which was thankfully arranged in chronological order. He watched himself grow up before his very eyes; turning from the slightly pudgy sixteen year old to a man with chiselled features and a toned chest. He looked at the photos that outlined his various tattoos and read the dates written beside them, the words on the back explaining something of the meaning (the ‘I Can’t Change’ tattoo, for example, which Harry noticed was covered now, had the song title written on the back of the Polaroid). He examined the various parties he and Louis had been to, always in the same pose for photographs – Louis pointing to him with a ‘drunken finger’ and Harry beaming away with windswept hair – or, in candid shots, kissing in the background of their close friends’ various shindigs.

The last photo was a normal one, as Harry imagined the day of the accident would’ve been. It was a picture of Harry and Louis curled up in bed at what appeared to be 9.03am, and Gemma’s hand was clear to be seen just outside of the frame. Their legs were entwined under the covers and they were both red faced and laughing, and Harry could literally feel the sentiments dripping off of the page like blood.

He couldn’t stand it anymore. He needed to know what had happened before the crash, but he’d be damned if it wasn’t Louis who told him.

A glint appeared on the wall, sun reflecting off some surface. Harry squinted at it, closing over the albums and pushing them to the side, being sure that they weren’t going to fall off. He shuffled around on the bed, causing the glimmer to move along the purple paint. He ran his fingers along the sheets before they finally came into contact with the sharp edges of a disc.

“Harry and Louis, fourth anniversary,” Harry read the writing out loud, furrowing his eyebrows at the DVD. “I wonder what this is.”

He scuttled out of the room and grabbed his charged laptop, bringing it back to the bed where he sat cross-legged while the DVD loaded. It was a video, he knew that much despite whatever Louis may say about his technological abilities (wait, had Louis said anything like that? Not within the last month, anyways) and so he expected something cute like cake cutting or a water balloon fight or Niall singing drunkenly in an Irish pub surrounded by burly men that checked Harry out in random intervals because in certain lights he looked decidedly feminine. Whatever he had been expecting, it wasn’t to see Louis’ face up close in the camera laughing, red faced and shaky, as he said, “I think I’ve got it this time, baby.”

Harry loved the way his lips formed around the word baby. He loved the way his eyes shone in the video and despised how they failed to do so now. (Why was he using the word love? He barely knew the boy! But, of course, he hadn’t when he moved in with him either, if he’d been telling the truth about that, which he doubted.) He found himself watching as Louis walked over to Past Harry, who was grinning considerably with deep dimples in his cheeks.

He took a good long look at himself. He was taller than he had been before - he knew that from his distance from the ceiling in his mother’s house – and he had broader shoulders. He was wearing all black; a sheer top that Louis seemed to be particularly fond of and tight jeans that looked uncomfortable around his legs. He preferred baggy trousers, which was what he was dressed in now, but seeing himself on the bed he had to admit he looked good. Really good. Just like Louis did...

Chuckles followed as the boys struggled to get their clothes off, Harry not recognising what he was watching until it was too late. He was transfixed, watching as their bodies moved against each other in perfect harmony, with the trained precision that said they’d done this many times before. He was so mesmerised by the sight of Louis’ naked body against his own that he barely recognised the sound of the front door opening and shutting, or the clunk of a Tesco bag falling to the floor in front of the bedroom.

Louis was standing there, fully clothed and smelling of the cold, his eyes wide and his mouth dropped open. Harry hurriedly shut the laptop, although it was too late. Louis had already seen.

“I can explain,” Louis began, stumbling slightly over his words. Harry pulled the laptop onto his knees to cover the bulge in his trousers.

“We weren’t just friends, were we?” he asked, his face feeling nowhere near as red as he thought it would be. Louis looked abashed, lost for words; an unknown expression on his handsome features.

“No,” he said finally, after deliberating for some time on what exactly to say to get him out of this. “We weren’t. We were...”

“Together?” Harry offered, almost laughing at the entire situation, although it wouldn’t be well received by the caught-off-guard Louis. Louis nodded, swallowing thickly. “Yeah, I gathered about halfway through the photo album.”

Louis’ eyes drifted to the discarded photos, lingering on each one.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Harry finished, somewhat lamely.

“No, no, I don’t,” Louis stuttered. “What’s yours is mine, yanno? Yeah.”

They remained that way, in mutual silence, for a long time. In Harry’s mind, it was hours, perhaps days, but in reality it was nothing more than ten minutes. It felt uncomfortable now to not be speaking to Louis, or kissing his mouth. But what could he say? ‘Well that was hot, want to re-enact it?’ would just be creepy. ‘You’re beautiful naked’ would be even more so. ‘I’m kind of hard right now’ was already blatantly obvious.

“Em...”

“I’ll make you some tea if you want, and we can talk?” Louis offered finally, seemingly recovered.

“You’re a good liar,” Harry said, as Louis turned around. He could only do this when the boy wasn’t looking at him, when Harry couldn’t see how his breathing changed when he insulted him. “You had me fooled. ‘Just friends, Harry, just friends’, wasn’t that what you said?”

“I did it for a reason, Harry,” Louis said. “We were a secret, for all of the wrong reasons.”

“You should probably tell me them then, so I can understand.”

“I will, for God’s sake. Just... get off the goddamn bed!”

Harry, with a quick glance back at the laptop which he had discarded and the tape he hadn’t finished watching, obeyed Louis and followed him into the kitchen, no longer caring whether Louis saw the effect the video had on him. (He also thought about the saying, ‘Money makes the world go around’ and how he disagreed; it was Louis who kept the Earth in rotation.)

“Did you used to do this before?” Harry asked calmly. Louis ceased bustling for only a millisecond before continuing. “Make me tea before I went to bed every night and when we need to talk?”

“It helps you sleep,” Louis responded, just as coolly. “But then you talk.”

“Talk?” he questioned, rubbing the sweat off his palms on his trousers.

“You talk in your sleep, genius,” Louis muttered, rolling his eyes.

Harry nodded. “And what do I say?”

“Nothing, now,” Louis sighed. “You used to...”

It had become obvious as soon as Harry had asked the question. He just didn’t want to admit it. “Say your name.”

“Yes.”

It was all falling into place. Harry could recall the feel of Louis in his arms as they fell asleep, could remember waking himself up at times with his mutterings. All the other boys complained, but Louis was different. Louis was always different. (What the hell was happening to him?)

Louis set down a mug in front of him, urging him to drink it before he began explaining. He rubbed his temples, frowning, whilst Harry sipped on the beverage that was made just how he liked it, or how he used to like it, or how he liked it, now. This was all so confusing.

“It’s difficult to explain,” Louis said.

“Try me,” Harry challenged. “I’ve got good at deciphering things.”

“Gay people don’t really do well in boy bands,” Louis began abruptly, deciding that being blunt was his only option. He watched as Harry looked at him with fierce intensity, soaking up every word. “And a gay couple would do even less well.”

“Because teenage girls want to marry us,” Harry added. “I saw that much on the internet. And you say it’s...”

“Unreliable, because it is,” Louis cut in. “Ugh, this is painful. Right. So we were advised by our managers not to come out, because it would affect sales and be a breach of our contract to do anything that would damage the business plan.”

“How is hiding a relationship part of a business plan? How did we fall for that?”

“We were young, Harry, and stupid, and by the time we got smart it was too late.”

The words were out of Louis’ mouth before he had the chance to think of them, but he found that they were true. Had they have been over twenty years old when Simon Cowell offered them the chance to live their dreams, would they have taken it so readily without stopping to consider the consequences? (Louis glimpsed at Harry, who was halfway through his tea already, and thought about how yes, they probably would, had they have been in love and wanting to travel the world together.)

“So we agreed to being closeted, and it was okay at the beginning, because we could just play the whole thing off as a joke,” Louis said, focusing on the swirling tea at the end of his spoon rather than Harry, who was still listening closely. “But then the fans started noticing things. Rumours started going round. There was a picture of us kissing that got out, and this one video of us at a bar where I called you my boyfriend.” Louis shook his head, laughing slightly. “I was so stupid, but I thought I was smart, because I was taking a stand, you know? I just made things worse.”

“You can’t blame yourself,” Harry said, feeling immediately that he had to comfort this boy. “You couldn’t have known.”

“I know,” Louis said. “But after that there were fake articles going out and... I got a girlfriend. A fake one, of course, her name was Eleanor, but nobody knew our relationship wasn’t real. I had to get angry at people and refuse that you and me were dating because... nobody could know.”

Harry thought how, if they were in a movie, the weather outside would be corresponding to the storm wrecking havoc inside of him. Instead, the sun was blaring in through the windows, making him even more uncomfortable than he already was.

“Eleanor was okay at the beginning, same as everything else. But then we had to do more and more to get people to believe because they still saw everything. They started saying that you’d moved out, and we had to change house to keep up with the story, and our interviews were scripted and edited within an inch of their lives. We couldn’t look at each other anymore, not without their say-so, and on stage it was choreographed specifically so that we wouldn’t be near each other or talk.”

Louis was speaking faster and faster, as if saying it more quickly would stop it hurting.

“Why was that?” Harry asked.

Louis smiled at him. “I was too obviously in love with you,” he said simply. Harry felt his stomach flip. “So yeah, it was bad. And with all the girlfriends and everything – you had a few too, but they were never long term like Eleanor – and with our arguing and all I just thought it would be too much to try to explain to you when you were getting better.”  
“You didn’t have to explain all of it,” Harry protested, feeling the irritation well up once more. “I mean, you could’ve just wakened me up and said, ‘Hey, I’m Louis, your boyfriend’ and nothing else, without leaving me to figure it out for myself. That was a lot to take in right there, Lou.”

“I was going through a lot as well, unless you didn’t realise,” Louis said, setting his cup down gently to prevent the hot liquid from spilling out over him. “I thought you were dead Harry. That’s how you looked.”

He couldn’t remember a damn thing about the accident, but with Louis’ words and the fact that they were talking more than they had for weeks other memories were coming flooding back. Before, the faint recalls he did get had been casual or when he was in bed between sleeping, so at least he had a chance to swallow them before he discussed them with the boy. Now, it was as if he was being bombarded by his past, taken over by things that he no longer cared about but had, had at some point cared about. It wasn’t making sense, and Louis was looking at him like he was beautiful and God Louis... Louis was so goddamn beautiful, so beautiful that beautiful wasn’t a good enough adjective, and such an amazing person, and Harry just wished with his entire being that he could remember.

“I thought we told each other everything,” he said defiantly. “So why did you lie to me about this?”

“You don’t know anything about it!” Louis exploded suddenly, his face reddening. He wasn’t usually so aggressive, Harry thought. It must just have been the stress, or maybe the memories... Remembering brought back emotions that were better forgotten...

“About our relationship?” Harry snapped. “Test me.”

Louis’ question came immediately, as if he had been waiting on his opportunity to ask it. “What were the first words we said to each other?”

Harry froze for a second, flabbergasted for only a moment. “Nobody knows that,” he spluttered.

“We did,” Louis stated, venom dripping off his lips. Okay, so now the foreshadowing effects appeared. The sun disappeared behind a cloud outside, even it afraid of the blue eyed boy’s rage.

Harry stood on the other side of the island, his heart pounding in his chest, in his head, in his thumb, everywhere a constant thump thump thump of the one thing keeping him alive, the one thing that was causing all of this trouble. God, why couldn’t he just have died?

A scream of frustration fell from his plump lips, and his knuckles made contact with a picture on the kitchen wall of two smiling boys, boys that were as much strangers as Louis was now. The photograph fell to the ground, the Polaroid settling in amongst the smashed glass. Blood trickled through Harry’s fingers, bright red against the pale porcelain of his skin.

He took one look at the photo and then at Louis’ watery eyes before he ran out of the apartment, not even stopping to grab shoes or a coat as he sprinted down the hall.

“You’re not the man I used to know, Harry!” Louis screamed, stirring the neighbours to come to their doors and peek out with scathing glances. “And you’re not the man I used to love!”

Tears streamed down his face, burning into the skin, hurting so intently that Harry couldn’t run much further before he fell to the ground just in front of the elevator. His stomach was aching, his lungs panting with the lack of oxygen, lactic acid building up in his blood. Everything was screaming as intently as Louis had before, yelling at him to go back, to apologise, to make it all right when all he wanted, when all he really wanted was this all to be over. Definitely, absolutely, finally over. And then he could go back to the peaceful calmness, the bright light he had experienced (although that might’ve been the headlights of the bus), the love that he felt bursting free from his chest, his spirit leaking from his human body and spilling outwards, covering his surroundings. He truly thought it was the end, and he hadn’t remembered much about it until Louis had asked.

The nurse in the hospital when he was brought in, just as he was resuscitated, had asked on a scale of one to ten how bad his pain was. He had said zero, because he couldn’t feel anything. His mind was numb and his limbs were as well, and he sort of liked it. He was lighter than he had been; perfectly calm and serene just as he had been in the boy’s embrace, just as he was up on stage when he’d just hit that perfect note. It was the buzz from the crowd and the taste of Louis’ lips and the sound of his mother’s voice all at once, so how could he possibly describe it as pain?

She’d looked at him then, with a worried expression and the doctor had mirrored it, but Harry hadn’t cared. Zero was right, on a scale of one to ten. Death didn’t hurt as much as this did right now, didn’t downright ache like how his stomach did now with missing Louis. He’d just seen him two minutes ago and heard him screaming at him, so how could he miss him? How could you miss someone who didn’t even know who you were anymore?

Half an hour later, when the nosy neighbours had long returned their heads into their own apartments and Harry’s frantic sobs had dulled down to silent tears running down onto his baggy trousers when he really wanted skinny jeans, Louis appeared with a blanket in his hands and a flask of tea on top of it.

“You might not be the boy I loved,” Louis mumbled, dropping the blanket around Harry’s shoulders, helping him stand up as he clutched to his aching stomach. Every point of contact felt like pins in his eyes, but Harry wanted more, so much more. It was the ten that doctors feared and revered at the same time; it was the ten that Harry hadn’t found the need to use until then, and he craved it. He craved the taste of Louis’ mouth and to brush against him in the way he had before, because he only had seven years before his skin repaired itself and he’ll have never touched Louis, and that just wouldn’t be right. “But you’re still Harry, and that’s all I need, really.”

“It’s okay,” Harry muttered with wet lips and sticky, tear stained cheeks, wondering how desperate Louis must be for his memories to return for him to be this kind, this generous with his affections. “If I had a choice, I’d love the old me too.”

That started Louis crying as well, something that Harry found himself being shocked at, and they barely made it back to the apartment before they crumpled to the floor together in the way that Zayn and Louis had done before, but this time there was kisses on top of heads and fingerprints on their upper arms, fingerprints that faded from sight but not from memory; fingerprints that felt like something more.

“I think I love you,” Harry whispered against Louis’ chest, but the other boy had sniffled at the same time, drowning the noise.

It was best, Harry thought, not to repeat himself.

*

**_Forty three days after._ **

It was three weeks before Christmas, and all through the house, not a soul was stirring, not even a mouse.

Harry and Louis were watching Home Alone (“A Tomlinson-Styles tradition, right?” Harry said. “Did Gemma tell you that?” Louis responded. Harry scrunched his eyebrows. “No, I don’t think so”) and Louis was thinking about how, when things happen, you can’t always rely on eye witness accounts. The people that were there may not be the best source of information you have.

For example, those who had been on the Titanic swore it never split in two pieces, that its great hull remained intact as it sucked down human souls into the depths of the ocean. However, years later, significant evident surfaced that it had, in fact, torn itself apart as it had the lives of its passengers.

That’s why Louis wondered so intently about whether the way in which Harry had begun looking at him in the past few days was simply magnified by the history that he had forgotten; that perhaps it was nothing more to Harry than some shared carbon atoms and the feeling of warmth on a cold night.

Just to prove to himself that he was, in fact, being stupid and that the boy who lay beside him was nothing more than a stranger, he mumbled an ‘oops’ to fill the silence, purposefully dropping his empty plastic cup to the floor. It rolled along the wooden floor and stopped at the rug, and Harry just grinned (a gesture that could challenge waterfalls for its beauty) and mumbled back ‘hi’ in a deliciously deepened tone.

Louis felt everything in his chest collapse like Niall’s chair had at the last barbecue pre-accident, and Harry rested his head back on Louis’ chest and whispered, “Those were our first words, weren’t they”, so casually, as if he hadn’t sent the other boy’s world into disrepair.

And Louis began to think that maybe not every moment could serve as an allegory for the beautiful tragedy of a sinkable dream.

*

**_Fifty days after._ **

“Does it really matter that I forgot some goddamn milk?” Louis groaned, kicking his vans into the middle of the hall where he knew Harry would trip over them on the way to Gemma’s party. “Just make something else, for God’s sake.”

“And what exactly am I supposed to make without milk?” Harry asked, leaning against the flour coated counter-top, rubbing his hands on his apron. A large bowl of dry pastry sat in front of him without a hope of ever coming together. “I promised her I’d make sugar biscuits. She said I used to make really nice ones.”

‘You did’ lingered on Louis’ lips, but he was too irritated to compliment the boy knowing that it would ultimately end with him going to the shop down the road in the heavy fucking snow just to get some bloody milk for sugar cookies. “Yeah, well, we can just buy some on the way.”

Harry let out a deep sigh. “But this is Christmas, Lou.”

“Two weeks before Christmas,” Louis corrected as the other boy rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, well, I still want to make something. It’s a Tomlinson-Styles tradition after all.”

“Did Gemma tell you that?” Louis laughed, thinking back to a week before as he stuck a finger into some ready-made icing and licked it off. Harry stopped stirring for a minute and scrunched his eyebrows.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “Is that another thing remembered?”

Louis smiled at him. “Yeah, it is,” he responded, leaning over to wipe some sugar off the boy’s nose. “You’re doing good, Harry.”

“I think the new neuropsychologist is helping,” Harry said, beaming from ear to ear at Louis’ touch. “I’m remembering a lot now, aren’t I?”

It was Louis’ humble opinion that it was nothing Mandy’s friend Rachel had done that jogged Harry’s memory. He liked the idea that their fourth anniversary had brought him right back again, and that they hadn’t completely fallen apart afterwards as they so easily could have.

“Did she say anything about how long it’ll take before it comes back completely?” Louis asked, smirking when Harry hit him away from the icing.

Harry shook his head, twirling the wooden spoon around his long fingers absentmindedly. “She just says we’ll keep going for a month or so. Apparently it’s normal for things to start coming back to me around now.”

Zayn had mentioned something about that as well, just after the accident. Louis found himself wishing he’d listened more. “Are you happy about that?” he asked, remembering Mary’s words to take his feelings into consideration. Despite Louis’ opinion that he was the one most affected by the whole amnesia, Mary remained convinced it was Harry who was struggling. She must’ve seen something he didn’t, because in Louis’ eyes Harry was almost as giddy as he had been during the X Factor.

“Of course I am,” Harry said, almost immediately. “I just want you to be happy.”

“As long as you’re happy I’m happy,” Louis responded.

“Same here,” the other boy protested. “So are we happy or not?”

“Well,” Louis started, cautiously. “Any time I’m with you I’m happy, you know that.”

“When did it happen, anyway?” Harry asked. He moved over to the oven and took some raised muffins out, the food smelling deliciously like home. “When did you know... you loved me?”

He was smiling somewhat hesitantly now, like he was scared of the answer. Louis pursed his lips. “After A Year in the Making,” he said. “When I saw you crying I just... I knew I’d do anything for no one to hurt you again.”

“You can’t protect me from everything,” Harry protested. “You obviously didn’t, either. I remember being sad. I don’t remember much, but I remember being sad.”

“We broke up for a while,” Louis said hurriedly, more to convince himself than anything else. “Maybe that’s what you remember.”

Harry nodded, but he didn’t look sure of Louis’ words. “That must be it,” he said. “Why did we...”

“You kissed someone else while we were dating,” Louis said. He tried to sound angry - reproachful, maybe – and he was determined to make New Harry suffer as much as Old Harry had for his forgiveness, regardless of the fact that they were gradually (ever so painfully slowly) becoming the one person again. However, for some reason he just couldn’t bring himself to raise his voice, or add a tone. It was only later that night he realised it was because he didn’t actually care anymore. He loved Harry so much that he’d forgiven him the second he heard.

The curly haired boy’s eyes watered slightly, but it might’ve been because he’d hit his thumb against the corner of the counter. “You know,” he said, changing the subject. “There’s one more song I haven’t listened to.”

Louis knew what the boy was about to say before he said it. “Little Things?” he asked. He was greeted by a nod from Harry and a smile that worked its way onto his careful features.  
There was a bowl of pastry abandoned in the centre of the island, surrounded by a thin layer of flour. There was an unmade bed and an old laptop that they couldn’t bear to part with. There was music playing that was so familiar but still made hearts jump, tears run, fans scream. And there was a memory, a memory of Ed calling Harry in the dead of night when both of them thought Louis was sleeping and saying, “I’m writing a song about you guys, do you mind talking about your boyfriend for a while?” There was the fact that Little Things was so inherently theirs even if they hadn’t written it, and that Harry remembered each and every one of the words, and how Louis couldn’t take his eyes off of the boy beside him because he was so goddamn beautiful and he made his heart pound in his stomach.

That night, there was a knock on Louis’ door, and there was a pale skinned boy with broad shoulders standing outside with a pillow dressed in nothing but boxers. There was an, “Of course you can, baby” and a “You’re scared of thunderstorms, and that’s why I’m here”. And when they woke up in the morning, with their legs tangled like branches on a tree or twigs caught on a vine and their lips mere millimetres from each other’s as if they’d kissed in their sleep, Louis looked at Harry, who was wearing a silver band that resembled a wedding ring, and he asked the boy if he wanted to try again (the answer was yes).

*

**_Sixty four days after._ **

When Louis was in primary school, he was asked to write an essay about the favourite present he had ever given. It was different than all those that had preceded; previously the teachers had asked about the best gift they had received. Louis had thought long and hard, determined to please the one teacher he had actually liked during his time in education, but he just couldn’t come up with a gift that had meant anything to him. Perhaps it was selfishness at such a young age, but he didn’t understand how one could be so happy giving as they could when they received. This feeling continued through adulthood as Louis unwrapped birthday and Christmas gifts on the same day, but it ended that cold winter’s night as their mothers and sisters watched on.

They’d decided to get a real tree into the Tomlinson family home for the first time in what must’ve been six years. The living room smelt delightfully of pine and the fire that crackled in the fireplace. Johannah was busy running around hoovering up the loose needles that fell onto the carpet, muttering that this was why she hadn’t done so for years, and Anne had laughed whilst she helped, her eyes sparkling just like her son’s. Louis’ sisters and Gemma had all finished opening their presents, and Louis had grinned over his gifts as well, especially the pair of reindeer socks and a couple Vans t-shirts that Harry had given him, but as far as Louis was concerned the best part of the day was yet to arrive. He took a box from under the tree, grasping it in his cool hands and passed it over to his boyfriend (and yes, he could finally call him that again) with a slight smile on his face.

Harry had beamed at him, thanking profusely even before he opened the gift. Goofy songs were playing in the background, making Louis look back to his childhood without guilt at enjoying it, and Anne was watching her son open the gift with a caring smile on her features. One Direction had made the decision, joined in their deliberations by Harry, to part ways. The band was at the peak of its career, and so this decision angered many a manager, but the time taken up with the hiatus ensured that they were out of the boundaries of their contract. Harry and Louis were planning to come out on New Year’s, finally determined to show their love to the world now that both of them remembered it.

Small tears splashed onto the cardboard box Louis had placed the iPod in, Harry’s face the epitome of sentiment. “An iPod?” he said, smiling up at Louis.

“It’s got all your favourite songs on it,” the blue eyed boy explained, “and the photo album pictures.”

“And the keys,” Harry muttered, linking them around his finger.

“For our new house in LA.”

They kissed then, the first kiss in one thousand, five hundred and fifty one hours, but it didn’t feel like the beginning. It felt natural, normal, as if they’d never stopped embracing each other. Harry’s arms moved around Louis’ waist, holding him strong and sure without a hint of hesitation, and there.

Louis felt it.

His boy had came back to him, and the memories were returning day by day by day, some things still forgotten but not mattering because Harry was here, in his arms, loving him.

And really, Louis thought as the snow fell round the living room containing seven cheering women, wasn’t that all that mattered?


End file.
